Human, All Too Human by Friedrich Nietzsche

The following review pertains to the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy edition of Friedrich Nietzsches `Human all too Human edited by Schacht and translated by Hollingdale. The current text is compilation of three texts, `Human all too Human (1878), `Assorted Opinions & Maxims (1879) and `The Wanderer & His Shadow (1880 ). These texts were rereleased 1886 as a 2-volume set with new prefaces. As with the majority of Nietzsches work these texts received little recognition during the authors lifetime.

First, kudos to Cambridge University Press for its the Texts in the History of Philosophy series with its objective of increasing access to important but lesser known philosophical works. This series promises to be an excellent resource for students of philosophy. This edition of Human all too Human is a helpful and accessible compilation of some of Nietzsches lesser known writings. While translation is always a challenging and often a contentious issue, Hollingdale appears to have achieved an appropriate mix of readability and literalness - he is effective in maintaining the poetic feel of Nietzsches prose. One minor criticism of this edition is the small font, while probably necessary to keep the text to a single volume; it can make reading less comfortable.

With regard to the work itself, Human all too Human is often seen by scholars as a transitional work in Nietzsche thought. And, has tended to be overlooked in English for reasons of accessibility (limited translations) and perception (not seen to add to his latter corpus). For example, Walter Kaufman the great post WWII popularizer of Nietzsche did not choose to translate these texts.

While clearly the themes evidenced in Human all too Human are further developed in Nietzsches later work, I believe the text has its own inherent value. Though somewhat more nuanced and less polemical than his more mature work, it provides wonderful insight into his views on a plethora of subjects, religion, art, epistemology, psychology, sociology and culture. It is also a treasure trove of ideas that are further developed by subsequent thinkers such Freud, Jung and Heidegger etc. Overall, it is a brilliant, insightful and wide-ranging text - highly recommended for all students of modern philosophy.

If you like aphorisms and philosophy, this book will become one of your bibles. If nothing else, its just plain fun to read for his incredible wit. Of course you have to put his ideas in the context of the period in which he wrote and understand that he has his own odd prejudices, but the brilliance of his understanding of the human condition really shines through. The biggest mistake any reader could make is to think Nietzsche was an anti-semite---far from it. He was anti-neanderthal. In this book especially the reader sees his low tolerance for received wisdom. This book is nothing less than part of the origin of Western psychology as practiced today. It also represents the demolition of science and philosophy polluted by the received Western theological framework. Some of the best parts are when he skewers religion. You have to love his style even if you do not agree with his pessimistic disgust for piety. This is the kind of philosophy book you need not fret over, unless you harbor wishful thinking about a supremely benevolent deity. Instead of making an elaborate argument about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, as preceeding systematic philosophers did literally and figuratively, Nietzsche bends the pin and throws it in the trash. I wish I had read this before his Genealogy of Morals, as knowing his thoughts here would have made that book far more interetsing and understandable. I highly recommend philosophy students first approaching Nietzsche pick up Human, All Too Human to start their study. And if you are religious and want to bolster your faith, well, you should stay far away from this book.

I feel obligated to correct a distortion suggested by `unraveler below. It is popular to suggest Nietzsche was an anti-semite, but this is a rather lazy habit. Nietzsches remark on `the youthful stock-exchange Jew was mentioned. Here it is in its proper environment:

. . . the entire problem of the Jews exists only within national states, inasmuch as it is here that their energy and higher intelligence, their capital in will and spirit accumulated from generation to generation in a long school of suffering, must come to preponderate to a degree calculated to arouse envy and and hatred, so that in almost every nation . . . there is gaining ground the literary indecency of leading the Jews to the sacrificial slaughter as scapegoats for every possible public or private misfortune. As soon as it is no longer a question of the conserving of nations but of the production of the strongest possible European mixed race, the Jew will be just as usable and desirable as an ingredient of it as any other national residue. Every nation, every man, possesses unpleasant, indeed dangerous qualities: it is cruel to demand that the Jew should constitute an exception. In him these qualities may even be dangerous and repellent to an exceptional degree; and perhaps the youthful stock-exchange Jew is the most repulsive invention of the entire human race. Nonetheless I should like to know how much must, in a total accounting, be forgiven a people who, not without us all being to blame, have had the most grief-laden history of any people and whom we have to thank for the noblest human being (Christ), the purest sage (Spinoza), the mightiest book and the most efficacious moral code in the world. . . .

Is this anti-semitism???

There are times when Nietzsche circumlocutes too often, meandering in a spirited way before getting to the point. And so this must be read slowly if one is to gather the wealth of insights within. But if you’ve the stomach for it, you will learn, and you will be challenged

I am glad for having read it, and stronger too. I will be recommending it to you, and to others

(My comments on Nietzsche are hardly worth noting; his fame and notoriety, his value as a philosopher and writer, will not be affected by one Amazon reviewer. I intend my review to be a comment on my own sentiments in reaction to the work, and also to reflect on the make of the book itself.)

Nietzsche is fascinating and thought-provoking. This book is a great primer for anyone who eventually intends to tackle some of Nietzsches more cryptic or "heavy" works. It lays out some of the thoughts he will develop more thoroughly later in his life, and is helpful for finding orientation within his philosophies. As a Christian, I strongly disagree with Nietzsches opinions about religion, the freedom of the spirit, and so much more,--nevertheless his thoughts here cannot be ignored or easily brushed aside, and his style is so infectious, compelling, and mystifying that I cannot help but be haunted by those thoughts, cannot help but respond and react and expose deeply buried sentiments in myself. Furthermore, in reading Nietzsches "psychological observations" (what he calls "reflection on the human, all too human") there is much insight gained into many of the prevalent European and American philosophies present today. I may disagree with him on a number of points, but he is clearly a penetrating and insightful beholder of the world whose thoughts have been steeped into our modern or post-modern culture.

(As I wrote above, my like or dislike has no bearing on his indispensable value in the history of philosophy and understanding the present-day philosophies.)

I would recommend Human, All Too Human, especially to someone who cannot commit an intense few weeks of serious study to one of Nietzsches later works. The observations are arranged in aphoristic style, and there are many different themes throughout the work, making this one of those philosophical texts that can be opened at almost any page and read at leisure. Some of Nietzsches observations would make more sense with a background in early Kantian philosophers, along with Rousseau, Pascal, and La Rochefoucauld, the Bible, and Greek philosophy and tragedy, and a handful of other works. But if experience here is lacking, most of Human, All Too Human can still be read an enjoyed.

The Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy soft-cover edition is right on par with all of their books. Solid binding, nice white pages, pleasant typeface, clean printing; if the reader likes to pencil in notes, he will find these pages treated very well to make erasing effective and clean. The introduction is weak, but thats to be expected from these editions. Introductions usually should be skipped anyway.

Human All Too Human and Daybreak can be considered as volumes one and two of the same work. As Nietzsche said in Ecce Homo, a careful reading predicates a full understanding of his later polemics. Here, the bombast is not yet as evident but the seismic rumblings of the will to power, the eternal return, the death of god, the over and last-men all are all foreshadowed in Nietzsches grand, classical deftness and precision of thought. Nietzsches largest printed work, HAtH has perhaps the broadest and best sustained discussions of nearly every topic of importance to thoughtful and reflective thinkers. This, together with Dawn is a great place to begin reading Nietzsche.

if you want to have your moral foundations knocked out from under you, read this book - and then build upon the ruins - Nietzsches, in my opinion, most accessible work, as his aphoristic style floats over many different topics - dont stop here however, i recommend Kauffmans "Nietzsche, Philosopher, Psychologist, AntiChrist" as a starter if you find the complexity and diversity of Nietzsches thought to be overwhelming or incomprehensible - hes frequently ambiguous and contradictory but its more a positive trademark of his works and shouldnt dissuade one from further readings.

In these short comments and aphorisms, F. Nietzsche asks himself: `Cannot all values be overturned? And, `Is Good perhaps Evil? (3)
His answers to these provocative questions are rather boring and dont reach the same level of his biting, polemic, destructive shouting in his later work.
There are exceptions, like `Almost every politician needs an honest man so badly that, like a ravenous wolf, he breaks into a sheep pen: not in order to eat the ram he has stolen, but rather to hide behind its woolly back. (470) Or, `Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. (483)

Of course, one can find here the seeds of his later philosophizing with a hammer, but they are rather meager one.

Good and Evil
`In the soul of the ruling clans and castes, the man who has the power to requite goodness with goodness, evil with evil, is called "good". The man who is unpowerful and cannot requite is taken for bad. (45)

Religion
`Ruling persons and classes will be enlightened about the benefit provided by religion; they are using it as a tool. The state needs (the priests) most private, secret education of souls. Without the help of priests no power can become legitimate. (472)

Christianity
`All psychological inventions of Christianity work toward the deep corruption of head and heart. Christianity wants to destroy, shatter, intoxicate. (114)

Anti-democratic stance and contempt for the masses
`A higher culture can come into being where there are two castes of society: the caste of forced labor and the caste of free labor. (439)
And, quoting Voltaire: `Once the populace begins to reason, all is lost. (438)

`Pithy is nothing less than a disease. (47)

Power and morality
`This is how the brutal, powerful man acts, the original founder of a state, who subjects to himself those who are weaker. Force precedes morality. (99)

The characteristics of his later works are still absent here: Christ is still the `noblest being, no misogyny and no war worship.

This book is not a good introduction to Nietzsches work; better are `Genealogy of Morals or `Beyond Good and Evil.
Only for Nietzsche fans and scholars.

Any person who has finished translating this book deserves high praise. However I would like to make several comments on it.
First, there is an old translation for the same book, by Hellen Zimmerman published in 1909. Zimmern’s translation is in public domain and can be freely downloaded from hkshp.org. Zimmern’s translation is surely old but it is a decent translation. She took the original texts and then translated them into simple and clear English, even if certain terminologies are out of date. On the other hand, Hollingdale’s style is quiet different as he did not change much the order of original text. This means that sometimes it is more difficult to understand his translations than directly to read from the original German texts. I strongly believe that Hollingdale adopted or used Zimmern’s book as a reference, which could be easy verified from comparing both books. There is not mentioning or crediting given to Zimmer’s book at all in Hollingdale’s book.

Second, this book and Zimmern’s both have the same mistakes and some of them are great enough to totally change what Nietzsche wanted to express. The reason I write this piece is just remind the reader to be cautious in reading this book and to avoid being misled by it. Below are three examples which can back up my comments :

In page 7 line 18

Original text : In sich ein Sieg verrat - ein Sieg?
Zimmern : Which betrays a victory, a Victory?
Hollingdale: Which betrays that a victory has been won , a victory?

Problem : verraten does mean “betray “ in English ,but sich verraten means “reveal”. Nietzsche mean a victory is revealed, not that a victory has been betrayed. Zimmerns made a mistake 115 years ago, then Hollingdale made the same mistakes 80 years after.

2. In page 8 line 5.

Original text: Tauwinde all Art gehen über ihn weg.
Zimmerm: Mild breeze of all kind pass over him.
Hollingdale.: Warm breeze of all kind blow across him.

Problem : Tau is a kind of rope, while Winde is a pural form of “Wind” which when translated to English means winch or reel. Tauwinde has nothing to do with wind at all. Nietzsche was using a metaphor to mean what has confined him is now gone. He was not mentioning someone that was enjoying a warm breeze. Again, Hollingdale made SAME mistake as Zimmern 80 years before him.

3. In page 19. Article 16.
Original text: Die Philosphen pflegen sich vor Das Leben und die Erfahrung-
Zimmern: Translated”pflegen” as tend to (tendency).
Hollingdale: Treated “pflegen” as “to be accustomed to”, which follows Zimmerm’s translation of “ to tend to”.

Problem: Pflegen means TO TAKE CARE OF or to tend (but not containing the meaning of intend to) in English. There is no semantic similarities between the German word Pflegen or the phrase “TO BE ACCUSTOMED TO” as Hollingdale interpreted. So therefore what he elaborated in the whole translation in the article 16 becomes totally dubious and very misleading.

I was really disappointed that the University of Michigan, the translator and publisher of this book, did not clearly state on the cover that this is not the complete version of "Human, All Too Human." I absolutely love Friedrich Nietzsches writings; they are all masterpieces. However, I am giving only one star to the translator and publisher for not specifying that this was only a selection of writings. The full book is at least 800 pages long.