Abstract

This book proposes a novel interpretation of Nietzsche’s thinking about friendship, a topic that remains understudied. Verkerk’s project takes its point of departure from questions about the nature of friendship and its relation to other themes in Nietzsche. Primary among these are the intellectual conscience, the ubiquity of the agon, the project of “becoming who you are,” the relation between ego and self, the free spirit, the critique of pity, the multiplicity and knowability of the drives, the will to power, and relations between men and women.How successful is Verkerk’s elucidation of Nietzsche’s thinking about friendship? At one level, the book does admirably what it sets out to do. It...