The Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophise with the Hammer: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophise with the Hammer, credited to Friedrich Nietzsche, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

Librivox recording of the The Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophise with the Hammer by Friedrich Nietzsche. Read by D.E. Wittkower Of The Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo: “If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how everything before my time was standing on its head, he should begin reading me in this book. That which is called ‘Idols’ on the title-page is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain English, The Twilight of the Idols means that the old truth is on its last legs.” Certain it is that, for a rapid survey of the whole of Nietzsche’s doctrine, no book, save perhaps the section entitled “Of Old and New Tables” in Thus Spake Zarathustra, could be of more real value than The Twilight of the Idols. Here Nietzsche is quite at his best. He is ripe for the marvellous feat of the transvaluation of all values. Nowhere is his language – that marvellous weapon which in his hand became at once so supple and so murderous – more forcible and more condensed. Nowhere are his thoughts more profound. But all this does not by any means imply that this book is the easiest of Nietzsche’s works. On the contrary, I very much fear that unless the reader is well prepared, not only in Nietzscheism, but also in the habit of grappling with uncommon and elusive problems, a good deal of the contents of this work will tend rather to confuse than to enlighten him in regard to what Nietzsche actually wishes to make clear in these pages. (Excerpt from A. Ludovici’s Preface) For more free audiobooks, or to become a volunteer reader, please visit librivox.org. M4B audiobook of complete book

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophise with the Hammer
• Author credits: Friedrich Nietzsche
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 14
• Listed recording duration: 4:43:15

Catalogue topics

• Friedrich Nietzsche
• The Twilight of the Idols
• How to Philosophise with the Hammer

Track guide

1. 00 - Translator's Preface, Narrator's Note, Author's Preface — 11:36
2. 01 - Maxims and Missiles — 12:01
3. 02 - The Problem of Socrates — 17:06
4. 03 - Reason in Philosophy — 15:15
5. 04 - How the True World Ultimately Became a Fable — 4:11
6. 05 - Morality as the Enemy of Nature — 16:15
7. 06 - The Four Great Errors — 27:29
8. 07 - The Improvers of Mankind — 13:10
9. 08 - Things the Germans Lack — 20:47
10. 09 - Skirmishes in a War with the Age, pt. 1 — 36:25
11. 10 - Skirmishes in a War with the Age, pt. 2 — 32:39
12. 11 - Skirmishes in a War with the Age, pt. 3 — 28:36
13. 12 - Skirmishes in a War with the Age, pt. 4 — 26:50
14. 13 - Things I owe to the Ancients — 21:01

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.