Journal of the History of Philosophy

476 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:3 JULY 1997 Lucid and argumentative as this book is, it is somewhat premature. None of the texts Beach works upon are yet available in translation. This book may in time secure them a welcome. MICHAEL G. VATER Marquette University John Richardson. Nietzsche's System. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 316. Cloth, $35.oo. John Richardson's Nietzsche is very different indeed from the various French Nietzsches and their Anglo-American cousins who were all the rage not so very long ago. His Nietzsche is closer in some ways to their analytical rivals, and in others (as his title invites one to surmise) to their more historically-attuned and systematically-minded predecessors--Heidegger among them. He concludes his book with the assertion that Nietzsche "remains deeply continuous with the tradition before him," making much of his affinities as well as his disagreements with Plato (yes, Plato!) and Aristotle in particular . Richardson makes a major contribution to the argument that "Nietzsche retains the 'cognitive' values of philosophy's tradition---only reinterpreting them, not rejecting them" (290) . That makes the book both refreshing and well worth reading, not only by those interested in Nietzsche but also by anyone interested in the possibility and prospects of a post-traditional approach to truth and knowledge. There is much else that is surprising about Richardson's book--some of it welcome , and some of it worrisome. He nicely takes it for granted that Nietzsche is a philosopher of major importance, to be taken seriously and dealt with as such. There also is much to be said for his conviction that Nietzsche's thinking on a good many matters developed in the direction of coherence. It is a stretch, however, to proclaim that it amounts to a "system"--and one which features a "metaphysics" at that. That overstates the case needlessly, and creates an artificial issue that is all too likely to distract attention from the real substance of Richardson's interpretation. Further: even if one countenances the use of Nietzsche's unpublished Nachlass as well as his published writings early and late (as I do), one would expect at least a little more sensitivity at this late date than Richardson shows to the questions this sometimes raises. But that is less troubling than his deceptively authoritative manner of presentation . All too often he sets out an account of what is purported to be Nietzsche's position on some topic as though he were just giving the news, without giving any indication that there is anything problematic about it--as there often is. Indeed, some of Richardson 's accounts are not only greatly oversimplified but highly questionable at best. For example, he asserts that for Nietzsche there are "three basic types of persons"-namely , "master, slave, and overman" (52). This truncated list would do Procrustes proud. One who does not already know better will come away with a very impoverished picture of Nietzsche's rich inventory of human possibilities. As if to make up for its shortness, Richardson goes on at considerable length about each "type," ascribing all sorts of traits to them that go well beyond what Nietzsche actually says about them. One BOOK REVIEWS 477 would never guess that Nietzsche's uses of the term Obermenschare restricted almost entirely to the first parts of Thus SpokeZarathustra. Richardson further buys all too uncritically into a number of dubious interpretive cliches, such as Deleuze's "active/reactive" distinction between "types" of "will to power," and the idea that Nietzsche's "values" are "egoistic" and "selfish." He very appropriately focuses a good deal of attention on Nietzsche's thinking with respect to value. But here he goes importantly astray, turning Nietzsche's interpretations into exhortations. Nietzsche, we are told, "favors a much rougher world" (178), in which "power egoism" prevails (153)- "Nietzschean agents" are those who act "with a view to power" (183). "As a will to power," Richardson takes Nietzsche to be saying, "my best relations to others need to be aggressive" (185-86) . This sort of confusion of description with prescription and aspiration crops up elsewhere as well, e.g., in Richardson's representation...