Nietzsche as Philosopher, an Original Study - Arthur C. Danto

Reasoning

At times I felt that the Routledge Critical Thinkers book was quite hard to read because of unnecessarily long sentences and words. Despite it's usefulness, I found that it didn't offer much subjectivity. I was attracted to this book in particular because it claimed to be "an Original Study", which suggests some subjectivity. I hoped that this would give me an idea of how some of Nietzsche's ideas could be interpreted and/or linked in a less objective manner.

The author, Arthur C. Danto was a philosopher, so probably had a fairly strong knowledge of Nietzsche's thoughts. He was also an art critic, so there may be some quotes in the book about Nietzsche's approach to art that could carry across to Graphic Design, which would be useful.

What I Gained

I found this book very useful, with some of the key points being: 

1. Society has been scared to stop following religion because they're scared that the morality will disappear with it, and they're unable to create new values.
2. Nietzsche felt that Christianity placed humanity in a debt to God that couldn't be repaid apart from through suffering, which lead to the 'Death of God'.
3. Nietzsche taught that pity made suffering infectious and contagious.
4. Nietzsche was scared of the eternal recurrence because it stops 'true creation', although it also renders the idea of a higher world (heaven) or the idea that there is a given goal to life. This allows man to live to his own ends.
5. All life is the will to power, and a living creatures could be interpreted as various wills acting in the same direction - a means to the will-to-power's end.
6. Nihilism is needed in order to make room for creation, so Nietzsche's nihilism was just a means to an end. Whereas religious nihilism has no end.

Potentially useful quotes:

Next Steps

I found this book incredibly useful to read. The reason there aren't as many quotes as from Spinks' introduction to Nietzsche is that at this point, as my understanding of Nietzsche has developed, the scope for something to be 'potentially useful' has shrunk.

I now intend to re-visit certain parts of Thus Spoke Zarathustra with my developed understanding of Nietzsche in the hope that the selected bits make more sense and are more useful in a subjective sense.