Untimely Review of Friedrich Nietzsche's, Twilight of the Idols

Abstract

This review essay of Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols (1888) is part of the journal TOPOI's Untimely Reviews series of classic works of philosophy. The journal explains the idea of the series this way: We take a classic of philosophy and ask an outstanding scholar in the same field to review it as if it had just been published. This implies that the classical work must be contrasted with both past and current literature and must be framed in the wider cultural context of the present day. The result is a litmus test for the work itself: Failure in accounting for relevant issues raised by contemporary literature reveals that, in those respects, our classic has indeed been outpaced by later works. On the other hand, any success in capturing core topics of current discussion, or even anticipating and clarifying issues not yet well brought into focus by contemporary scholars, is the strongest proof of the liveliness of the work, no matter how long ago it was written.This essay tries to discharge the task for Nietzsche's TWILIGHT. Themes dealt with are Nietzsche's attacks on morality, on free will, on mental causation, on Socrates, and on Kant. Connections are drawn with contemporary work by Mark Johnston, David Rosenthal, and Daniel Wagner, among others.