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Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche

Philosophy

Friedrich Nietzsche

1844–1900 · German (Prussian-born; stateless from 1869)

19th-century philosophy; precursor of existentialism

Nietzsche was a German classical philologist turned philosopher who attacked Christian morality and the foundations of Western values in brilliantly aphoristic books. His concepts of the death of God, the Übermensch, the will to power and eternal recurrence shaped existentialism, psychology and postmodern thought. After his mental collapse in 1889 his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche edited his notes and promoted him in ways that fed a Nazi appropriation his own anti-nationalist, anti-antisemitic views contradict.

How to spot them

  • ▸"God is dead", Übermensch (Superman/Overman), will to power, eternal recurrence
  • ▸Zarathustra, master and slave morality, ressentiment, "beyond good and evil"
  • ▸Apollonian and Dionysian; "philosophising with a hammer"; amor fati
  • ▸Professor of philology at Basel at 24; friendship and break with Wagner; collapse in Turin

Key works

The Birth of Tragedy (1872)

Die Geburt der Tragödie: Greek tragedy arose from the fusion of Apollonian order and Dionysian frenzy; championed Wagner

The Gay Science (1882)

Die fröhliche Wissenschaft: contains the madman's announcement that "God is dead" and the first statement of eternal recurrence

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885)

Also sprach Zarathustra: poetic-prophetic work introducing the Übermensch; inspired Richard Strauss's tone poem

Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

Jenseits von Gut und Böse: "prelude to a philosophy of the future" attacking dogmatism and the prejudices of philosophers

On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

Zur Genealogie der Moral: three essays tracing slave morality, guilt and ascetic ideals to ressentiment

Twilight of the Idols (1889)

Götzen-Dämmerung, subtitled "How to Philosophize with a Hammer"; includes "What does not kill me makes me stronger"

Key ideas

  • The death of God: belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable, leaving European culture facing nihilism and the need for a revaluation of all values
  • Master morality (good/bad, rooted in the self-affirmation of the strong) versus slave morality (good/evil, rooted in the ressentiment of the weak), with Judaeo-Christian ethics a "slave revolt in morality"
  • The Übermensch is a goal humanity can set itself: a being who creates his own values and affirms life after the collapse of religious meaning
  • The will to power: a basic drive to grow, overcome and expand, which Nietzsche sees at work in life and even in morality and knowledge
  • Eternal recurrence: the thought-experiment of living one's life again infinitely, a test of whether one can wholly affirm life (amor fati, love of fate)
  • Perspectivism: there is no knowledge free of interpretation, only seeing and knowing from particular perspectives

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born in Röcken, Prussian Saxony, the son of a Lutheran pastor
  • •Appointed professor of classical philology at the University of Basel in 1869, aged just 24
  • •Was close to Richard Wagner in the early 1870s but broke with him; later wrote The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche contra Wagner
  • •Suffered a mental collapse in Turin in January 1889 and lived on incapacitated, cared for by his mother and sister, until his death in Weimar in 1900
  • •His sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, a nationalist and antisemite, compiled The Will to Power from his notebooks and later courted the Nazis; Nietzsche himself had denounced antisemitism and German nationalism
  • •Ecce Homo, his autobiography subtitled "How One Becomes What One Is", was written in 1888 but published only in 1908
  • •Proposed marriage to Lou Salomé (later Andreas-Salomé), who refused him

Drill it — 10 cards

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Sources