Nietzsche as a free spirit and new philosopherIn the second chapter of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche develops a fragmented portrait of a character type to which he refers as “free spirit”. In the rest of Beyond Good and Evil he develops this portrait and relates it to another type, the "new philosopher", whom he relates to the free spirit type in a specific (although complex) way. Nietzsche conceptualizes himself, as I will show, both as a “free spirit” and as a “new philosopher.” Nietzsche spends a lot of time describing the characteristics of these two types. The central feature of the complex characterization of the free spirit is freedom – although Nietzsche conceptualizes this freedom in a non-traditional way: it is not a political freedom, and it is certainly not democratic. In fact, this freedom “is reserved for a very few” and the “very strong” (Nietzsche 29). Independence is something one must test oneself for, Nietzsche asserts, and if one "comes to grief, it occurs so far from the understanding of men that they do not feel it and do not sympathize" ( Nietzsche 40, 29). The characteristics of the free spirit described by Nietzsche throughout the book are rare characteristics among humanity: free spirits are subtle and possess the “art of nuance”; they are “extra-moral” and “immoralistic,” that is, they do not bind themselves to the conventional moral beliefs in which most people place their faith (Nietzsche 31, 32). The main characteristics of the free spirit, however, elucidate this type in a specific way that denies that the free spirit is simply a rare person. Nietzsche's characterization of free spirits middle of paper ...... finally, we have succeeded in explaining all our instinctive life..."; "Perhaps he himself [the new philosopher] must have been" the eleven things that Nietzsche describes as important aspects of the training of the new philosopher (Preface Nietzsche, 36, 211 Other examples are present in the work, but these will be enough to show that this work is experimental in nature. Ultimately, Nietzsche does not advocate a new dogma Beyond Good and Evil is an explanation and a philosophical argument, but it is also an experiment, a creative attempt at a method of interpreting. world like other free minds and new philosophers - if there are still any - Nietzsche freed himself from the prejudices of previous philosophers which led to dogmatism.ReferencesNietzsche, Friederich Beyond good and evil New York.., 1966.