Overview

Nietzsche's Unfashionable Observations often translated as the Untimely Meditations or Thoughts Out of Season is made up of four independent essays written between 1873 and 1876. The book remains a puzzle: what structure, principles and arguments underlie the essays? Presupposing no prior knowledge of Nietzsche or the text, Jeffrey Church sets the essays in historical and philosophical context, guides you through the text section-by-section and develops a structural overview of each essay. He reveals how the common themes of freedom, culture and genius unify the book.

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"An insightful and discriminating addition to the Edinburgh Critical Guides to Nietzsche series ... Addressing concerns in a diverse selection of scholarly secondary literature on Nietzsche's early period, Church (political science, Univ. of Houston) provides a combination of intellectual history, broad philosophic context, and careful textual analysis. The author is most insightful on Nietzsche's (unacknowledged) debt to Kant's three critiques, both for their circumscription of the role of reason in the identification of fundamental human concerns and the importance of self-legislating morality.--W. J. Coats, Connecticut College ""Choice"" Church's book is a clear and bold interpretation of a difficult and often inscrutable text. While remaining attentive to subtle details, Church never loses sight of his central purpose: to find and defend the fundamental normative standard at work in the Observations. Readers thus have the pleasure of finding in Church a frank interlocutor who states his position up front and is unrelenting in its defense ... Any reader of Nietzsche's works can profit immensely by wrestling with Church's argument.--Kimberley J. Burns, University of Dallas ""The Review of Politics"" Readers of Nietzsche can be grateful for Church's rich analysis, which does much to make sense of this challenging book. Church has acquired a profound understanding of the essays through careful study, and his knowledge of the philosophic context informing Nietzsche's thought is evident throughout. Church's lucid exposition, attention to detail, and seemingly compendious knowledge of Nietzsche's eighteenth- and nineteenth-century predecessors make his book indispensable. All future interpretations of the Observations will benefit from engaging with Church's most helpful commentary.--Shilo Brooks, Princeton University ""The Review of Politics"" This is an excellent guide to Nietzsche's underappreciated Unfashionable Observations, bringing out the unifying ethical and cultural themes that run through the work and setting them in the larger context of philosophical reflection on ethics and culture in the nineteenth century. The clarity of Church's writing will make this an especially useful volume for students new to Nietzsche's thought.-- ""Professor Paul Franco, Bowdoin College"" [A] lucid, bold, and insightful interpretation of Nietzsche's Unfashionable Observations ... Church's interpretation is full of interesting observations, unexpected connections, and nuanced reflections. His erudition and familiarity with Nietzsche's corpus clarify conceptual distinctions and illuminate textual obscurities. Yet the outstanding virtue of Church's work lies in the probing questions it raises about human nature and the search for meaning ... Such questions take us to the heart of Nietzsche's thought, and Church is to be commended for writing such a stimulating and provocative book.--Paul T. Wilford, Boston College ""The Review of Politics"""

An insightful and discriminating addition to the Edinburgh Critical Guides to Nietzsche series ... Addressing concerns in a diverse selection of scholarly secondary literature on Nietzsche's early period, Church (political science, Univ. of Houston) provides a combination of intellectual history, broad philosophic context, and careful textual analysis. The author is most insightful on Nietzsche's (unacknowledged) debt to Kant's three critiques, both for their circumscription of the role of reason in the identification of fundamental human concerns and the importance of self-legislating morality.--W. J. Coats, Connecticut College ""Choice"" Church's book is a clear and bold interpretation of a difficult and often inscrutable text. While remaining attentive to subtle details, Church never loses sight of his central purpose: to find and defend the fundamental normative standard at work in the Observations. Readers thus have the pleasure of finding in Church a frank interlocutor who states his position up front and is unrelenting in its defense ... Any reader of Nietzsche's works can profit immensely by wrestling with Church's argument.--Kimberley J. Burns, University of Dallas ""The Review of Politics"" Readers of Nietzsche can be grateful for Church's rich analysis, which does much to make sense of this challenging book. Church has acquired a profound understanding of the essays through careful study, and his knowledge of the philosophic context informing Nietzsche's thought is evident throughout. Church's lucid exposition, attention to detail, and seemingly compendious knowledge of Nietzsche's eighteenth- and nineteenth-century predecessors make his book indispensable. All future interpretations of the Observations will benefit from engaging with Church's most helpful commentary.--Shilo Brooks, Princeton University ""The Review of Politics"" This is an excellent guide to Nietzsche's underappreciated Unfashionable Observations, bringing out the unifying ethical and cultural themes that run through the work and setting them in the larger context of philosophical reflection on ethics and culture in the nineteenth century. The clarity of Church's writing will make this an especially useful volume for students new to Nietzsche's thought.-- ""Professor Paul Franco, Bowdoin College"" [A] lucid, bold, and insightful interpretation of Nietzsche's Unfashionable Observations ... Church's interpretation is full of interesting observations, unexpected connections, and nuanced reflections. His erudition and familiarity with Nietzsche's corpus clarify conceptual distinctions and illuminate textual obscurities. Yet the outstanding virtue of Church's work lies in the probing questions it raises about human nature and the search for meaning ... Such questions take us to the heart of Nietzsche's thought, and Church is to be commended for writing such a stimulating and provocative book.--Paul T. Wilford, Boston College ""The Review of Politics""

Author Information

Jeffrey Church is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston. He is the author of Nietzsche's Culture of Humanity: Beyond Aristocracy and Democracy in the Early Period (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Infinite Autonomy: The Divided Individual in the Political Thought of G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche (Penn State University Press, 2012) which was awarded Best First Book by the Foundations of Political Theory section of APSA.

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