What Is Philosophy for Nietzsche? An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil

Abstract

This paper intends to examine the nature of Nietzsche's philosophy of the future through a careful textual reading of Beyond Good and Evil, a work that was written in his mature period. The question is situated in the context of three competing understandings of Nietzsche's philosophy, the postmodernist understanding, the traditionalist understanding and the political understanding, and focuses on how Nietzsche is able to overcome the nihilistic tendencies inherent in his doctrine of the will to power, which is a substitute for metaphysics. The conclusion is that Nietzsche's vision of a philosophy of the future is not a system of doctrines, but is embodied in the life and soul of the philosopher of the future. Thus a philosophy of the future in Nietzschean sense would essentially be a contemplation of the highest or noblest type of soul, which is precisely what Beyond Good and Evil is concerned with.