Spinoza, Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Deleuze suggests that Spinoza is an inspiration for Nietzsche's 'beyond Good and Evil' notion. The 'Good and Evil' that Nietzsche repudiates has three main dimensions--a psychological strategy, an ontological doctrine, and an historical tradition. The psychological strategy is the use of those value terms as weapons of the weak against strength. The ontological doctrine holds that Being is fundamentally a conflict between a benign force and a malignant force. The historical tradition is the Christian dogma that has dominated in Europe for centuries. In contrast, Spinoza is plainly aware that his system diverges from orthodox Judaeo-Christianity, and he does offer not so much a psychological but an epistemological diagnosis of the ideas 'Good' and 'Evil', i. e. they are inadequate ideas. But the more significant dimension of the three for him is the ontological one, since his Monism, with which Good-Evil Dualism is incompatible. Still, even more fundamental for him is the principle that his Monism expresses, namely his Rationalism. For, Rationality demands systematic unity, and an ontological Good-Evil split violates that unity. Likewise, the unitary source for Nietzsche of all three dimensions of 'Good and Evil', including the ontological one, is his Will to Power principle, from which each of his three repudiatios follows.