The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Vol. 8 (Beyond Good and Evil / On the Genealogy of Morality)

Beyond Good and Evil is Nietzsches first sustained philosophical treatment of issues important to him. Unlike the expository prose of the essayistic period (187276), the stylized forays and jabs of the aphoristic period (187882), and the lyricalphilosophical rhetoric of the Zarathustraperiod (188285), Beyond Good and Evil inscribes itself boldly into the history of philosophy, challenging ancient and modern notions of philosophys achievements and insisting on a new task for new philosophers. This is a watershed book for Nietzsche and for philosophy in the modern era. On the Genealogy of Morality applies Nietzsches celebrated genealogical method, honed in the earlier aphoristic writings, to the problem of moralitys influence on the human species. In three treatises that strikingly anticipate insights appearing much later in Freuds Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), Nietzsche provides an anthropological psychograph of our species, revealing the origins of the concepts of good and evil, the roles played by guilt and bad conscience, and the persistence of ascetic ideals. Manifesting a hopeful yet unsentimental assessment of the human condition, these books resonated throughout the 20th century and continue to exert broad appeal.