Introduction

To the neophyte (or the crusty old school philosopher who would have no truck with anything that doesn’t contain backwards E’s and upside down A’s), the chapter is likely to sound at worst like gibberish, and at best like a random and loose collection of thoughts by someone of questionable sanity. But careful examination and study reveals that “On the Prejudices of Philosophers,” in just twenty-three compact sections, is a well-connected and well-developed chain of ideas and arguments expressed in aphorisms that accomplishes two important things simultaneously: it encapsulates Nietzsche’s sweeping and potentially devastating critique of the Western philosophical tradition, and it articulates succinctly much of the mature Nietzsche’s philosophical thought.