Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Note on the textR. J. Hollingdale's translation of Nietzsche's four UntimelyMeditations (1873-6) was first published by Cambridge UniversityPress in 1983 and is here reproduced, with a few minor corrections.The introduction by Daniel Breazeale has been preparedspecifically for this new edition, as hav the note on Nietzsche'stitle, chronology, the further reading and the notes. Persons mentionedby Nietzsche are identified in the glossary of names.Nietzsche's title'Die 'Zeit' is a noun meaning both 'time' and 'the time' (as in 'thetimes', 'the age' or 'the era' ); 'gemiiss' is either an adjective that. means 'appropriate' or 'fitting', or a preposition that means 'inaccordance with' or 'in compliance with'. Accordingly, somethingis 'zeitgemass' when it is 'timely', not in the sense of being 'punctual'or 'opportune', but rather in the sense of being 'appropriate tothe time' or, more figuratively, 'up to date', 'in fashion' or 'modern'.'Betrachten' is a verb that means 'to look at', 'to observe', 'to scrutinize','to contemplate', or 'to consider'. 'Betrachtung is a noun thatdesignates the act of 'observation', 'reflection' or 'contemplation',as well as as the product of the same. Betrachtungen is simply theplural of Betrachtung and thus designates a series of such acts ofreflection or observation.The translation of Unzeitgemiisse Betrachtungen as UntimelyMeditations, which was championed by Walter Kaufmann and hasbeen adopted by Hollingdale, thus seems appropriate enough,even though some have objected to what they consider the misleadingly'Cartesian' and 'introspective' connotations of the termxliv