Abstract

It is widely assumed that there may be a tension in Nietzsche’s views concerning freedom. In particular, Nietzsche seems to deny certain views of free will (GM I:13) and warns against “the hundred-times-refuted theory of ‘free will’” (BGE 18). Nevertheless, he also appears to admire the sovereign individual––“the man who has his own independent, protracted will,” “this master of a free will” (GM II:2)––as well as those who have forged a “free spirit” (GS 347). John Mandalios’s Nietzsche and the Necessity of Freedom is a contribution to a growing secondary literature that seeks to render these ostensibly contradictory claims coherent. Mandalios seeks to establish two claims. First, he argues that the problem of ..