Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is the world's most controversial philosopher. The book focuses on a cluster of problems and issues that Nietzsche addresses. They are among the so-called "perennial problems" in philosophy: morality, religion, nihilism, metaphysics, necessity, truth, logic, knowledge, consciousness and personal identity. The book then discusses Nietzsche's criticism of necessity and ontology. It then suggests how his views go well beyond the philosophical tradition he inherited and how those views are still germane despite another hundred years of philosophizing. The book then focuses on the aspects of Nietzsche's thought that are parts of the tradition of Western philosophy. Finally, the book discusses Nietzsche's psychology, his doctrine of the will to power and his views about the flourishing life.