Major work on ethics, by one of the most influential thinkers of the last two centuries, deals with master/slave morality and modern man's current moral practices; the evolution of man's feelings of guilt and bad conscience; and how ascetic ideals help maintain human life under certain conditions. This challenging, rewarding work is required reading in philosophy courses worldwide.

Among the most influential philosophers of modern times, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) declared in this classic study that Greek tragedy achieved greatness through a fusion of elements of Apollonian restraint and control with Dionysian components of passion and the irrational. In Nietzsche's eyes, however, Greek tragedy had been destroyed by the rationalism and optimism of thinkers like Socrates. Nevertheless, he found in these ancient works the life-affirming concept that existence is still beautiful, however grim and depressing it may sometimes be. These and many other ideas are argued with passionate conviction in this challenging book, called by British classicist F. M. Cornford "a work of profound imaginative insight, which left the scholarship of a generation toiling in the rear."

This edition of The Joyful Wisdom boasts an authoritative English translation by Thomas Common, which brings Nietzsche's poetry and philosophy to vivid comprehension. Initially published in 1882 and also known by its alternate title The Gay Science, the arguments within this book are primarily occupied with the philosophical concept that God has died. It is in this publication that Nietzsche first makes his famous statement that God is dead; a phrase which was to become associated with the philosopher during and after his lifetime. For his own part, Nietzsche identifies these writings as being of an intensely personal nature, the poems within expressing feelings at the core of his being. Definitively part of the philosopher's middle period, this work encapsulates the praise of science and intellectual prowess which characterized Nietzsche in the early 1880s. A strong alignment with skepticism and a commitment to innovation with the scientific method, are strongly praised by the philosopher.

Este es el má s certero de los ataques de Friedrich Nietzsche contra la moral judeocristiana. En este libro el filó sofo desdeñ a la compasió n, la debilidad y las creencias que dieron nacimiento a la sociedad occidental luego de la muerte de Cristo en la cruz, al tiempo que plantea la necesidad de recuperar los ?valores de la aristocracia?, es decir, el poder, la fuerza, el gusto por la bú squeda de la verdad má s allá de las supersticiones. El anticristo es la gé nesis de una religió n, el cristianismo, pero tambié n del mundo occidental tal cual lo conocemos. En é l, Nietzsche desentrañ a los sentimientos que llevaron a los primeros cristianos a tergiversar el mensaje de Jesú s, para convertirlo en una ?contradicció n de la vida?.

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche accuses past philosophers of lacking critical sense and blindly accepting dogmatic premises in their consideration of morality. The work moves into the realm "beyond good and evil" in the sense of leaving behind the traditional morality which Nietzsche subjects to a destructive critique in favour of what he regards as an affirmative approach that fearlessly confronts the perspectival nature of knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual.