Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most important works in Western philosophy. Written in 1886, it represented Nietzsche's attempt to elucidate ideas first written about in Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra). Unfortunately, the book is also very difficult and widely misunderstood. This video attempts to set the stage for a deeper understanding of this seminal work of German philosophy.
In this first part, we explore the significance of the title, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, and we introduce the concept of the "philosophical prejudice" which is the main theme of the work. Nietzsche believed "other philosophers" (all those who came before him; notably Descartes, Kant, Plato, Schopenhauer and the Stoics) suffered, unbeknownst to them, from hidden presuppositions. Nietzsche, the philosopher with the hammer, seeks to destroy these presuppositions and lead the charge in the creation of a new philosophy of the future.
In this part we mainly discuss Nietzsche's treatment of Descartes famous "cogito ergo sum", "I think, therefore I am" argument. In later parts we will discuss the Will to Power and other Nietzschean philosophical concepts.