Friedrich Nietzsche
May 10, 2023•1,348 words
Life
1844 - 1900
Context
Rise of the imperial British, French, other nations in Africa
Early life
- Born in Saxony, Prussia
- Grandfather published works defending Protestantism and had ecclesiastical position
- Other grandfather was a parson
- Father was appointed pastor Röcken by order of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia (who he is named after)
- Father died before Nietzsche’s 5th bday
- Lived with his mother, sister, and two aunts
Education
- 1850: moved to Naumburg
- Nietzsche attended a private preparatory school
- 1858: admitted to Schulpforta, Germany’s leading Protestant boarding school
- Excelled academically, graduated in 1864
- Studied theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn
- Quarreled with his professors, found comfort in music
- 1865: transferred to the University of Leipzig
- Tutored by Ritschl and prospered, becoming the only student to publish in Ritschl’s journal
Career
- Began military service in Oct 1867 in the cavalry company of an artillery regiment, sustained a chest injury
- Finished his studies in Leipzig in October 1868 while on sick leave
- Discovered Schopenhauer’s philosophy
- Ritschl helped him attain a position in Basel despite not finishing his doctoral thesis or additional dissertation
- 1872: The Birth of Tragedy
- Renounced citizenship but still served in military
- 1878: Human, All Too Human
- Isolated after falling out with his friends
- 1883-5: Thus Spoke Zarathusa
- Suffers from mental insanity
- Sister cares for him, he suffers strokes, she takes over his publishing rights
- Unable to speak or walk for the last ten years of his life
- Theorized that the cause was syphilis and drug abuse
- Theorized that his sister made certain edits to his work
- Only in the last years and period after his death did he become popular
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Philosophy
- Radical perspectivism
- Not all perspectives are of equal truth or value
- None have an absolute view of the world separate from perspective
- Perspectives should be compared
- Style
- Very provocative, blasphemous
- Philosophy with a hammer
Motives
- Reactionism
- Sensitive to the debates and events of his time
- Responded to a lot of what was occurring, opposed most of it
- Against nationalism because he did not want to belong to a nation
- against antisemitism, split with his publisher
- Against liberalism, religion, communism, anarchy, ideas of the Enlightenment, women’s rights
- Existentialism
- Individual experience and existence is the basis of philosophy
- armour fauti: Embrace fate, undergo suffering and accept it to become stronger
- Nihilism
- Ascribed nihilism of his time to decline of Christian influence
- Sacrifice of meaning in life, leading to people feeling purposelessness
- Nietzsche disagreed with this perspective
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Religion
- Enlightenment
- Replacement of God
- Science does not provide appropriate substitutions for values
- Increase in nihilism
- Gott ist tott
- A very misinterpreted concept
- God is dead. God Remains dead. And we have killed him. (The Gay Science)
- God was created and destroyed by human beings
- He believed people believed in the function of the idea of God: a way to handle suffering (to make sense of their own and feel better for their oppressors)
- God provides light in a dark world, strength in adversity, loss, lack of justice
- The Enlightenment leads to the rejection of God based on reason
- Meaning in suffering
- Suffering is a way to better ourselves
- Meaningful life turns on achieving personal excellence
- The discipline of suffering, of great suffering—do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? (BGE 225).
- Belief in God sustains weakness, he saw walking with God as walking with a crutch
- Moral equality
- Thought modern atheists still believed in God, they do not understand the true extent of atheism because they embrace traditional moral principals that imply people are morally equal
- If God is dead, we are not all his children, nothing makes us equal
- Belief in God binds excellence
- Benefits social order, mediocrity, and removes individuality
- Nietzsche does not just reject God, but the idea of God and religion
The Übermensch
- Nihilism
- Nietzsche was not a nihilist
- Movement was consequence of the decline or Christian values and the rise of the Enlightenment
- Will to power
- Pain and pleasure
- Coincide in life
- Pain fuels growth, what does not kill make you stronger
- All human relations are related to the will of power
- Power dynamics
- Constantly shifting
- Will to power should be intended to overcome ourselves
- Willing to sacrifice or risk for the gain of power
- People strive for power over others
- It creates dignity and self appreciation
- Altruism
- Cannot exist
- People have subliminal intentions of status, favors
- Lust of power
- Human history is the influence of ideas, actions, and institutions for the sake of power
- The Overman
- Men could do without religion and create new values
- Becomes the figure of the Übermensch, man becomes God
- Man mut remain faithful to earth, avoiding the temptation of the banal existence of the “Last Man”
- Response to this social degradation
- Embraces the values of the master morality
- Consequences
- Not triumphant: it would cause chaos in society
- Collapse of ethical system
- Need to creation of our own values
The Last Man
- antithesis of the Übermensch
- A mediocre person without dignity, conforming to society
- Rejects the message of the Übermensch
- Worried that tame and domesticated life will lead to increase of the last man
- Embraces values of the slave morality
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Morality
- Subjective
- Believes morality was made by the slave to justify their suffering
- Derived from a hate of life
- Morality is fictional, it is counter-productive
- Master morality: authority, to be courageous, confident, wealthy, healthy
- Slave: sick, poor, pathetic, weak
- The weak desire power, calling this resentment: marginalized hate their masters and cannot become masters themselves, so they create their own morality that condemns the master
- Master is therefore greedy, aggressive, ignorant
- Associated with charity, pity, meekness, restraint, and the feeling of guilt
- The weak are made more worthy, the master is condemned
- Resentment
- This resentment is present in Christianity
- Also sees this in socialism
- Plays a role in modern politics
Truth
- Inflexible
- Should be viewed by multiple perspectives
- The one who can force their view on others is the one that triumphs
Eternal recurrence
- No moment is fleeting
- Constant state of transformation
- The human experience is part of one whole
Dichotomy
- Opposed the modern state, antisemitism, nationalism
- Against democracy, liberalism
- Considered an irrational
Progress
- Evolution leads to weakness
- There is no true progress
- Opposed Enlightenment
Social rights
- Women’s place is being mothers
- Women are God’s second mistake
- Freudian take is about his multiple rejections of marriage, one marrying to his best friend instead
Impact
- Atheism
- Early thinker in this movement
- Admiration
- Only occurred after his death
- Very popular, cult figure in Germany
- Thus Spoke was the second most demanded book by German soldiers in the trenches during WWI
- Significant influence on later political philosophers
- Nazi Germany
- Influential on Hitler
- Idea of the Übermensch related to the idea of racial superiority
- His idea of the Untermensch was projected onto the Jewish population, also perhaps inspired eugenicist thinking
- Also inspired Mussolini, Stalin, and Reagan
- The idea that society can create the perfect man
- Sister Elizabeth
- Began a colony in Paraguay based on these ideas of the new man
- Failure because of lack of food
- Demonstrates the difficulty (or fallacy) of creating a new man