Friedrich Nietzsche

• Born : 15 October 1844

Röcken Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia

• Died : 25 August 1900 (aged 55)

Weimar, Saxony, German Empire

• Residence : Germany

• Nationality: German

• Era : 19th Century Philosophy

• Region : Western Philosophy

• Main Interest: Aesthetics · Ethics Metaphysics · Nihilism

Psychology · Ontology Poetry · Value theory

Voluntarism · Philosophy of history

Friedrich Nietzsche

German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became

one of the most influential of all modern thinkers.

Named after King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who turned forty-nine on

the day of Nietzsche's birth. (Nietzsche later dropped his middle name

"Wilhelm".

Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–49), a Lutheran pastor and

former teacher, and Franziska Oehler (1826–97), married in 1843, the year

before their son's birth.

Philosophy

Nietzsche is known for his use of poetry and prose (sometimes together

in poetic prose style) in his writings. An excellent example is his iconic

phrase "God is dead", in German: Gott ist tot..

Nietzsche's writings are the unique case of free revolutionary thought that

is revolutionary in its structure and problems but isn't tied to any

revolutionary project at all.

Nietzsche begins his "Campaign against Morality". He calls himself an

"immoralist" and harshly criticizes the prominent moral philosophies of his

day: Christianity, Kantianism, and utilitarianism.

Will To Power (der Wille zur Macht)

A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical

outlook which provides a basis for

understanding human behavior—more so

than competing explanations, such as the

ones based on pressure for adaptation or

survival.

As a youthful disciple of Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was

influenced by the older philosopher's critique of reason and by his suggestion

that art, as an expression of genius, afforded a glimpse of being-in-itself.

Nietzsche's encounter with Attic tragedy led him to a reevaluation of Greek

culture that would have a momentous impact on modern thought and

literature. In a path breaking dissertation that was ultimately published in 1872

as The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, Nietzsche claimed that the

dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles represented the high point of Greek

culture, whereas the philosophy of Plato and Platonism constituted a decline.

Nietzsche's study culminated in a withering critique of Socrates and the

Western philosophical tradition engendered by his method of logical

analysis and argumentation—elenchos, or dialectic. “Our whole modern

world,” Nietzsche laments, “is caught in the net of Alexandrian

[Hellenistic] culture and recognizes as its ideal the man of theory, equipped

with the highest cognitive powers, working in the service of science, and

whose archetype and progenitor is Socrates.”

Nietzsche's Mature Philosophy

Nietzsche's writings fall into three well-defined periods. The early works, The Birth of

Tragedy and the four Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (1873; Untimely Meditations), are

dominated by a Romantic perspective influenced by Schopenhauer and Wagner. The

middle period, from Human, All-Too-Human up to The Gay Science, reflects the

tradition of French aphorists. It extols reason and science, experiments with literary

genres, and expresses Nietzsche's emancipation from his earlier Romanticism and

from Schopenhauer and Wagner. Nietzsche's mature philosophy emerged after The

Gay Science.

Nietzsche's Influence

Nietzsche once wrote that some men are born posthumously, and this

is certainly true in his case. The history of 20th-century philosophy,

theology, and psychology are unintelligible without him.

The theologians Paul Tillich and Lev Shestov acknowledged their

debt as did the “God is dead” theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer; Martin

Buber, Judaism's greatest 20th-century thinker, counted Nietzsche

among the three most important influences in his life and

translated the first part of Zarathustra into Polish.

Novelists like Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, André Malraux, André

Gide, and John Gardner were inspired by him and wrote about him, as did

the poets and playwrights George Bernard Shaw, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan

George, and William Butler Yeats, among others.

Nietzsche is certainly one of the most influential philosophers who ever lived;

and this is due not only to his originality but also to the fact that he was the

German language's most brilliant prose writer.