Beginning with Ecce Homo: The Question of How to Approach Nietzsche

Ecce Homo, surrealist style.Generated with DALL·E.

Introducing Nietzsche

Students frequently ask where to begin with Friedrich Nietzsche. Many teachers propose Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, or even Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Rarely does one hear a recommendation to start with Ecce Homo, a dizzying late work composed shortly before Nietzsche’s collapse. At first glance, the text reads like a catalogue of bold declarations and flamboyant self-presentations—hardly an intuitive starting point for newcomers. Yet Jacques Derrida suggests otherwise. In Otobiographies, he claims that the preface to Ecce Homo is “coextensive with Nietzsche’s entire oeuvre,” that Nietzsche’s complete body of writings “prefaces Ecce Homo and finds itself repeated in the few pages” introducing the book. Derrida’s remark invites us to reconsider whether this disconcerting autobiography might, under the right circumstances, serve as a legitimate point of entry.

This essay explores that possibility. It examines what Derrida’s claim entails, why Ecce Homo might illuminate Nietzsche’s entire philosophical project, and what dangers accompany making it one’s first encounter with his thought. The aim is not to elevate the text into the definitive gateway, but to show how, with proper guidance, it can expose beginners to central themes while raising a more fundamental question: why read Nietzsche at all?

Derrida’s Remark and Its Implications

“I shall start with the preface Ecce Homo, which is, you could say, coextensive with Nietzsche’s entire oeuvre, so much so that the entire oeuvre also prefaces Ecce Homo and finds itself repeated in the few pages of what one calls, in the strict sense, the Preface to the work entitled Ecce Homo.”

—J. Derrida, Otobiographies: The Teaching of Nietzsche and the Politics of the Proper Name

Derrida’s statement is provocative because it suggests that Nietzsche’s final work is not a mere capstone but a mirror reflecting his whole philosophical undertaking. To call the preface “coextensive” with the oeuvre is to claim that it does more than introduce the book—it introduces Nietzsche. In these few pages, we encounter a compressed performance of his style, his revolt against inherited values, his commitment to self-creation, and his insistence that philosophy cannot be separated from the life of the thinker.

Here the politics of the “proper name,” a recurring theme in Derrida’s text, becomes crucial. Nietzsche repeatedly stages his own name as unstable—something that reveals and conceals the thinker simultaneously. Ecce Homo, with its theatrical chapter titles such as “Why I Am So Wise” and “Why I Am a Destiny,” transforms the name “Nietzsche” into a philosophical problem. If we take Derrida seriously, these stylistic excesses are not distractions but clues.

How Ecce Homo Condenses Nietzsche’s Project

Ecce Homo functions as Nietzsche’s retrospective on his earlier writings. Each book is reinterpreted through the lens of his late philosophy, offering readers a compact survey of his intellectual development. The surface of the text is flamboyant, but the underlying structure is remarkably systematic: recurring themes from across his career return here in condensed form.

Among these themes, one of the most prominent is the revaluation of values—the demand to overturn inherited moral frameworks and replace them with an ethic grounded in strength, creativity, and affirmation. Nietzsche urges the capacity to say “yes” to existence, including its suffering. Equally central is the inseparability of style and thought. For Nietzsche, form is never neutral: rhythm, tone, and voice shape philosophical insight as much as conceptual content. Ecce Homo embodies this conviction overtly. Its autobiographical structure reinforces his belief that philosophy is an expression of a life in the process of becoming. To “become who one is” requires shedding habits, conventions, and expectations—a drama Nietzsche stages through his own narrative.

When Nietzsche remarks that he is describing “how one becomes what one is,” he gestures not toward a formula but toward a method. Life and philosophy must intertwine. In this sense, Ecce Homo distills his project: to craft a way of thinking that reflects the singularity of a life rather than the impersonality of a system.

A Pedagogical Case for Beginning Here

Why, then, might a teacher choose this text as an introduction to Nietzsche? Precisely because it disrupts expectations. Ecce Homo refuses to present philosophy as a tidy set of doctrines. Instead, it confronts the reader with urgency, irony, humor, and vulnerability. For newcomers, this can be transformative, bringing them face to face with a central difficulty of reading Nietzsche: how does one approach a philosopher who resists systematization?

In a classroom, this initial destabilization can become a pedagogical advantage. Starting with Ecce Homo is like going straight to the deep end—not to make students sink, but to show them that Nietzsche must be encountered in his full complexity from the outset. The book offers no shallow water, no gentle slope into the material.

From the beginning, students realize that interpretation is not optional but part of the philosophical task itself. The text invites them to trace motifs, register tonal shifts, and consider how a philosopher’s life and ideas intertwine. Approached this way, Ecce Homo turns reading into a philosophical exercise in its own right, preparing students to engage more conventionally argumentative works, such as the Genealogy of Morals, with greater sensitivity and interpretive skill.

Risks, Objections, and Necessary Caution

There are also substantial objections to beginning one’s reading of Nietzsche with Ecce Homo. Its extravagant tone may alienate readers or tempt them to dismiss Nietzsche as merely self-aggrandizing. Certain passages verge on parody; others oscillate between lucidity and self-mythologization. Without context, beginners may mistake the rhetoric for literal confession rather than stylized performance.

Furthermore, the text reflects Nietzsche’s late period and therefore cannot represent the breadth of his earlier concerns: his philological investigations, his reflections on Greek tragedy, the psychological analyses of Human, All Too Human. These dimensions remain invisible if Ecce Homo stands alone as the starting point.

For these reasons, reading the book without guidance can be misleading. Its brilliance depends on a reader capable of navigating its tone and understanding its performative structure. Thus many scholars recommend approaching it later. Yet under supervision, its eccentric form becomes an asset: it challenges readers to rethink what philosophical authorship and self-presentation might mean.

Conclusion

Beginning with Ecce Homo is not the safest path into Nietzsche’s thought, but it can be a uniquely illuminating one. Derrida’s claim encourages us to view the preface as a condensed reflection of Nietzsche’s entire philosophical endeavor—a distillation rather than a distraction. Used thoughtfully, the text can lead readers into the rest of Nietzsche’s writings with heightened awareness of the stakes involved. Starting at the end allows one to confront the beginning anew.

Bibliography

• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Ecce Homo.
• Derrida, Jacques. Otobiographies: The Teaching of Nietzsche and the Politics of the Proper Name.
• Secondary studies on Nietzsche’s late writings and philosophical autobiography.