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Friedrich Nietzsche

 
Music Encyclopedia: Friedrich (Wilhelm) Nietzsche
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(b Röcken, 15 Oct 1844; d Weimar, 25 Aug 1900). German philosopher. His significance for musical aesthetics is the distinction he drew between the ‘Romantic’ and the ‘Dionysian’, which led to the repudiation of Romanticism as a product of sickness. He applied it to Wagner's music, which he had originally championed; his volte-face anticipated the 20th-century reaction against all that is over-burdened, over-decorated and heavy in 19th-century art. Many musical works have been inspired by his writings, particularly Also sprach Zarathustra.


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Biography: Friedrich Nietzsche
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The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) foresaw a European collapse into nihilism. In works of powerful and beautiful prose and poetry he struggled to head off the catastrophe.

Friedrich Nietzsche was born on Oct. 15, 1844, in Röcken, a village in Saxony where his father served as a Lutheran pastor. The father's death, when the child was 4 years old, was a shattering blow to which Nietzsche often referred in his later writings. This death left Nietzsche in a household of women: his mother, grandmother, several aunts, and a sister, Elizabeth.

After attending local schools in Naumburg, in 1858 Nietzsche won a scholarship to Pforta, one of the best boarding schools in Germany. Here he received a thorough training in the classics and acquired several lifetime friends. At the end of this period of schooling, Nietzsche, who had earlier fully shared the genuine piety of his family, found that he had ceased to accept Christianity - a view that soon hardened into outright atheism. With the highest recommendations of his Pforta teachers, Nietzsche enrolled in the University of Bonn in 1864.

There he pursued classical studies with Friedrich Ritschl, and when the latter, within the year, moved to Leipzig, Nietzsche followed him. Nietzsche attempted to enter into the social life of the students, even joining a dueling fraternity, but he soon discovered that his sense of his own mission in life had isolated him from the pursuits and interests most students shared. At this time, too, Nietzsche apparently contracted syphilis in a Leipzig brothel. The incurable disease gradually undermined his strong constitution. In middle life he suffered almost constantly from migraine and gastric upsets. Loneliness and physical pain were thus the constant background of his life - though Nietzsche later came to interpret them as the necessary conditions for his work.

Nietzsche's early publications in classical philology so impressed his teacher that when a chair of philology opened up at Basel, Ritschl was able to secure it for Nietzsche, then only 24 years old and still without his degree. This the University of Leipzig gave him on the strength of his writings without requiring an examination, and Nietzsche entered upon a teaching career. Important for Nietzsche's intellectual development was his discovery in these Leipzig years of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Lange and the music dramas of Richard Wagner.

When Nietzsche took up residence in Basel, Wagner was nearby at Tribschen, and Nietzsche was soon drawn into his circle. Wagner was then at work on the Ringcycle and on the great festival at Bayreuth that would be inaugurated for its premiere. The project needed publicity and financial support, and many German intellectuals were backing it. Nietzsche entered into the cause with enthusiasm and for several years was a frequent house-guest at Tribschen. Friendship with the charismatic but egocentric Wagner was, however, incompatible with independence of thought, the quality Nietzsche most valued. Before long he began to reassert his own ideas and plans. This led finally to a break, followed by some bitter polemics.

Prior to the break, Wagner had greatly influenced Nietzsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), which gave an imaginative account of the forces that led to the rise of Athenian tragedy and to its subsequent decline. Nietzsche's book ends with a rousing advocacy of Wagner's music drama as a revival of Hellenic tragedy. But no sooner had it been published than Nietzsche began to perceive the difference between Wagner's musical genius and the shabby pseudophilosophy of the Wagnerian cult. From then on, though he still felt affection for Wagner's person, Nietzsche attacked ever more vigorously the "decadence" of Wagner's political and philosophical ideas. Two works of his last year of writing deal with the subject: The Wagner Case (1888) and Nietzsche contra Wagner (1888).

Nietzsche's teaching at Basel was interrupted frequently by prolonged bouts of sickness and by several months of service as a medical orderly during the Franco-Prussian War, which further aggravated his illness. In April 1879 his health had deteriorated so much that he was driven to resign. He was given a small pension, and he now began a 10-year period of wandering in search of a tolerable climate. Though racked by increasing pain from the relentless progress of his disease, Nietzsche managed to produce 10 substantial books before his final collapse. They belong to the first rank of German literature and contain a provocative set of philosophical ideas.

His Philosophy

Nietzsche believed that European man was standing at a critical turning point. The advance of scientific enlightenment, in particular the Darwinian theory, had destroyed the old religious and metaphysical underpinnings for the idea of human dignity. "God is dead," declares Nietzsche's spokesman Zarathustra, and man, no longer "the image of God," is a chance product of a nature indifferent to purpose or value. The great danger is that man will find his existence meaningless. Unless a new grounding for values is provided, Nietzsche predicted a rapid decline into nihilism and barbarity.

Nietzsche aimed in all his work to provide a new meaning for human existence in a meaningless world. In the absence of any transcendent sanction, men must create their own values. Nietzsche's writings are either analyses and criticisms of the old system of values or attempts to formulate a new system. For European man, the Judeo-Christian tradition was the source of the old values. Nietzsche attacked it head on in such works as A Genealogy of Morals (1887) and The Antichrist (1888).

In his constructive works Nietzsche sought to find in life itself a force that would serve to set human existence apart. He found it in the hypothesis of the will to power - the urge to dominate and master. All creatures desire this, but only man has achieved sufficient power to turn the force back upon himself. Self-mastery, self-overcoming: these are the qualities that give a unique value to human life. The ideal man, the "superman," will achieve a fierce joy in mastering his own existence, ordering his passions, and giving style to his character. The sublimation of passion and of life's circumstances that the ideal man achieves in his self-overcoming will release in him a flood of creative energy. The lives of such men will be the justification of reality; their preferences will constitute the standard of value.

All morality is thus the result of self-overcoming, but Nietzsche discerned a criterion by which to distinguish the morality of the superman from the "decadent" morality of Christianity. The latter undercuts earthly life in favor of an illusory afterlife, condemns self-assertion as pride, and perverts bodily functions with guilt and fear. Its tendency is toward nihilism and the denial of life. The new morality, on the other hand, will affirm life, encourage self-assertion, and eliminate guilt consciousness. In Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883) Nietzsche formulated the ultimate test of the superman's affirmations. Confronted with the hypothesis of eternal recurrence, the notion that the world process is cyclical and eternal, the superman still affirms life. Let it be - again and again - with all its joys and sorrows.

On Jan. 3, 1889, Nietzsche collapsed on a street in Turin, Italy. When he regained consciousness, his sanity was gone. He began to send off wild letters to friends and strangers signed "Dionysus - the Crucified." He was taken to his mother's home and lived on in a twilight condition, sinking ever further from the real world until his death on Aug. 25, 1900.

Further Reading

Nietzsche's last work, Ecce Homo (trans. 1911), is an autobiographical review of his published works; although fascinating and illuminating, it shows signs of megalomania and incipient madness. The best biography of Nietzsche is R. J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy (1965). Of the numerous recent critical works on Nietzsche, the best is Walter Kaufmann's provocative Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist and Antichrist (1950; 3d rev. ed. 1968).

Political Dictionary: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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(1844-1900) German political writer who attacked Christianity and conventional ethical viewpoints. Altruism and egalitarianism, in Nietzsche's view, were debased forms of sentimentality derived from Christianity. In their place, he celebrated egotism, and the man who had transcended the slave morality of Christianity to achieve the status of übermensch (higher man). Nietzsche's thought influenced National Socialism.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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(born Oct. 15, 1844, Röcken, Saxony, Prussia — died Aug. 25, 1900, Weimar, Thuringian States) German-Swiss philosopher and writer, one of the most influential of modern thinkers. The son of a Lutheran pastor, he studied at Bonn and Leipzig and at age 24 became professor of Classical philology at the University of Basel. He became close to the older Richard Wagner, in whose operas he saw the potential for the revival of Western civilization, but broke with Wagner angrily in 1876. His Birth of Tragedy (1872) contained major insights into ancient Greek drama; like Untimely Meditations (1873), it is dominated by a Romantic perspective also influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer. Mental and physical problems forced him to leave his position in 1878, and he spent 10 years attempting to recover his health in various resorts while continuing to write prolifically. His works from Human, All Too Human (1878) to The Gay Science (1882) extol reason and science, experiment with literary genres, and express his emancipation from his earlier Romanticism. His mature writings, particularly Beyond Good and Evil (1886), A Genealogy of Morals (1887), and Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883 – 92), were preoccupied with the origin and function of values in human life. If, as he believed, life neither possesses nor lacks intrinsic value and yet is always being evaluated, then such evaluations can usefully be read as symptoms of the evaluator's condition. He fulminated against Christianity and announced the death of God. His major breakdown in 1889 marked the virtual end of his productive life. He was revered by Adolf Hitler for his dislike of democracy and his heroic ideal of the Übermensch (Superman), though the Nazis perverted Nietzsche's thought and ignored much in it that was hostile to their aims. His analyses of the root motives and values that underlie traditional Western religion, morality, and philosophy affected generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights.

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German Literature Companion: Friedrich Nietzsche
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Nietzsche, Friedrich (Röcken nr. Lützen, 1844-1900, Weimar), a pastor's son, showed remarkable gifts at an early age. He was at Bonn and Leipzig universities and was elected at 25 (1869) to a chair of classical philosophy at Basel University. In the Franco-Prussian War (see Deutsch-FranzÖSischer Krieg) he was a volunteer in the medical service. In 1879 he resigned his chair on the ground of ill-health.

During his tenure of the professorship Nietzsche wrote Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik (1872), in which, in addition to underlining the Dionysiac element in Greek civilization and its expression in tragedy, he praised the work of R. Wagner, whose friend he had been since 1868 Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen (1873) extended his revolutionary view of classical philology by diminishing the emphasis on Plato and Socrates in favour of earlier Greek thought. His preoccupation with cultural values is most clearly seen at this time in the four long essays (termed Stücke) of Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen; the first of these to appear was David Strauß, der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller (1873); the second, Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie (1874), made the cleavage between Nietzsche's attitude and that of contemporary historians unmistakably clear; the third and fourth were devoted to two figures of whom Nietzsche then approved, Schopenhauer als Erzieher (1875) and Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (1876). But the adoration for Wagner waned from 1876 on. A complete breach came with the publication of volume 1 of Menschliches, Allzumenschliches in 1878-80. This had an epilogue ten years later in Nietzsche's Der Fall Wagner (1888).

Between his resignation in 1879 and 1888 Nietzsche was a sick man suffering from violent headaches and eye trouble. In this period he made frequent changes of residence from Sils Maria in Switzerland, to Sorrento, thence to Genoa, Turin, and Nice, but his symptoms continued unabated. He also suffered from personal crises. The breach with Wagner remained unhealed; difficulties arose with his sister Elisabeth (see Förster-Nietzsche, E.) and his mother; and in 1882 he fell in love with Lou Andreas-Salomé, proposed to her by proxy and was rejected. In the clear periods of his mind, however, he pursued the process of relentless disillusionment and demasking of false idealisms with Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche and Der Wanderer und sein Schatten (1880) in a second volume of Menschliches, Allzumenschliches. The 1880s began with an attack on morality in Morgenröte. Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurteile (1881), a work of 575 numbered paragraphs divided into five books, the underlying idea of which is the condemnation of mere obedience to tradition—‘Sittlichkeit ist Gehorsam gegen die Sitten’. The assault on accepted morality, and especially Christian morality, is continued in Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886) and Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887), which, written at speed in three weeks, savagely underlines some of the points of its predecessor. Nietzsche attempted something more positive in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882, revised version 1886), which sets out his idea of the true man, free of prejudice, a European in his thought, rather than a German. The book, though cast in the familiar form with 383 aphoristic paragraphs in five books, betrays the lyrical and subjective element, both in the groups of poems with which it begins and ends, and in the heading given to the fifth book, Wir Furchtlosen. The third book ends with a Nietzschean catechism (§§ 268-73). The subjective tone becomes much more marked in the rhapsodical utterances of Nietzsche's best-known work, Also sprach Zarathustra, of which Pts. I-III were published in 1883-4 and Pt. IV privately in 1885, though the complete work did not appear until 1892. It is in Also sprach Zarathustra that the ‘superman’ (Übermensch) appears. Related to this work are the rhapsodical poems in free verse, often impressive, but of uneven quality, published as Dionysos-Dithyramben (1888). In the same year appeared Der Antichrist, his bitterest attack on Christianity with its ‘Sklavenmoral’, to which he opposed his own ‘Herrenmoral’.

As early as 1883 Nietzsche conceived the idea of a systematic master-treatise on his philosophical views, which were otherwise scattered throughout diverse writings. To this conception he gave in 1885 the title Der Wille zur Macht. Versuch einer Welt-Auslegung. He never completed this work, for which he made abundant notes and aphoristic formulation, but it was published after his death, edited and arranged by his sister and P. Gast, under the title Der Wille zur Macht. Versuch einer Umwertung aller Werte in 1906. Its presentation has been the subject of much controversy, and a scholarly edition of what Nietzsche actually wrote did not appear until 1960 under the title Aus dem Nachlaß der Achtziger Jahre. In addition to Der Fall Wagner of 1888, Nietzsche worked in this year on Götzendämmerung, oder: Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert (1889, English title Twilight of the Idols), which is concerned with his admiration for the highly developed instinct of the Greeks to be strong, to have, in his own term, the ‘Will to Power’. Ecce homo, not published until 1908, is a work of self-justification, written in a tone of overconfident assertion. The last ten and a half years of Nietzsche's life were spent in increasing physical paralysis and mental illness, in which he was devotedly cared for by his mother and sister in Naumburg and, after 1897, in Weimar.

Nietzsche's searing and destructive criticism of the culture of his age is a remarkable individual achievement, and he may be said to have foreseen with accuracy many of the developments of the 20th c. Though some still see him as a systematic philosopher, he is more generally viewed as a cultural critic of outstanding vision, integrity, and ruthlessness. Nietzsche's personality was undoubtedly deeply split, and the consequent contradictions and inconsistencies have laid his work exceptionally open to misinterpretation and exploitation. The gentleness and pure love of truth which were in him were overcompensated by an insistence on brutality and an arrogant dogmaticism. In reality no one was less like the ‘blonde beast’ (‘blonde Bestie’) or the ‘superman’, two of the clichés most frequently cited from his work. The cleavage in the personality is probably one reason why the more poetic works seem less satisfactory as time gives more perspective. But as a clear-eyed critic Nietzsche deserves the highest reputation.

The phrases ‘Herrenmoral’ and ‘Sklavenmoral’, the idea of the ‘blonde beast’, and the conception of the ‘will to power’ were easily adapted and prostituted to nationalistic ends in Germany, and this occurred in the Wilhelmine era before 1918, and, more brazenly, in the National Socialist period.

Nietzsche's Werke, kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. G. Colli and M. Montinari, planned in 30 vols., began appearing in 1967 and correspondence (Briefwechsel) (20 vols.) in 1975 ff.

Philosophy Dictionary: Friedrich Nietzsche
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Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844-1900) Born in Prussia, the son of a Lutheran minister who died insane four years later, Nietzsche spent the years of childhood with his mother, sister, grandmother, and two maiden aunts. In 1858 he entered boarding school, and in spite of poor health went on to study theology and classical philology at the university of Bonn, and then removed to Leipzig, where he became influenced by Kant, Schopenhauer, and the composer Richard Wagner. A year in the army in 1868 was cut short by illness, but his intellectual distinction was such that in 1869 he was appointed to the chair in philology at Basel, although at the time he was only 24 years old, and had none of the formal qualifications usually required (Leipzig happily gave him his doctorate without requiring any examination or thesis). Nietzsche's first book, Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik (1872, trs. as The Birth of Tragedy) introduces the famous distinction between the Apollonian and the Dionysian spirit in Greek life and thought.

The work is, amongst other things, a challenge to the Buddhist resignation of Schopenhauer, since creating the Apollonian response to the terrors of Dionysius is something positive, active, and heroic rather than apathetic and passive. Nietzsche's next writings, from 1873 to 1876, are the four ‘Untimely Meditations’ (Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen); the last of these is especially significant as signalling Nietzsche's break with the composer Richard Wagner, partly because of the latter's nationalism and anti-Semitism, partly because of what Nietzsche saw as the soggy Christianity of the opera Parsifal, and partly because Wagner was not appreciative of Nietzsche's own flirtation with the French Enlightenment. In 1879, Nietzsche resigned from the university because of his chronic ill health, and on a modest pension devoted the rest of his time to writing. Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (1878-80, trs. as Human, All Too Human) was the first of the aphoristic books, followed by Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche (1879, trs. as Mixed Opinions and Aphorisms), and Der Wanderer und sein Schatten (1880, trs. as The Wanderer and His Shadow). Morgenröte. Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurteile (1881, trs. as The Dawn: Reflections on Moral Prejudices) and Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882, trs. as The Gay Science) begin the crucial exploration of self-mastery, the relations between reason and power, and the revelation of the unconscious strivings after power that provide the actual energy for the apparent self-denial of the ascetic and the martyr. It was during this period that Nietzsche's failed relationship with Lou Salomé precipitated the emotional crisis from which Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883-5, trs. as Thus Spake Zarathustra) signals a recovery. This work is frequently regarded as Nietzsche's masterpiece. It was followed by Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1887, trs. as Beyond Good and Evil), Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887, trs. as The Genealogy of Morals), and other minor works. In 1889 Nietzsche collapsed on a street in Turin, unable to bear the sight of a horse being flogged, and for the remaining years of his life was clinically insane. It is generally accepted that during the years towards his death (and after it) his sister and guardian or nurse, Elisabeth Förster Nietzsche, played a role in muddying the channels of Nietzsche's influence on German life.

Nietzsche is unchallenged as the most insightful and powerful critic of the moral climate of the 19th century. His exploration of unconscious motivations anticipated Freud. He is notorious for stressing the ‘will to power’ that is the basis of human nature, the ‘resentment’ that comes when it is denied its basis in action, and the corruptions of human nature encouraged by religions, such as Christianity, that feed on such resentment. But the powerful human being who escapes all this, the ‘Übermensch’, is not the ‘blond beast’ of later fascism; it is a human being who has mastered passion, risen above the senseless flux, and given creative style to his or her character. Nietzsche's free spirits recognize themselves by their joyful attitude to eternal return. He frequently presents the creative artist rather than the warlord as his best exemplar of the type, but the disquieting fact remains that he seems to leave himself no words to condemn any uncaged beasts of prey who best find their style by exerting repulsive power over others. This problem is not helped by Nietzsche's frequently expressed misogyny, although in such matters the interpretation of his many-layered and ironic writings is not always straightforward. Similarly, such anti-Semitism as has been found in his work is balanced by an equally vehement denunciation of anti-Semitism, and an equal or greater dislike of the German character of his time.

Nietzsche's current influence derives not only from his celebration of the will, but more deeply from his scepticism about the notions of truth and fact. In particular, he anticipated many of the central tenets of postmodernism: an aesthetic attitude towards the world that sees it as a ‘text’; the denial of facts; the denial of essences; the celebration of the plurality of interpretations and of the fragmented self; as well as the downgrading of reason and the politicization of discourse. All awaited rediscovery in the late 20th century. Nietzsche also has the incomparable advantage over his followers of being a wonderful stylist, and his perspectivism is echoed in the shifting array of literary devices—humour, irony, exaggeration, aphorisms, verse, dialogue, parody—with which he explores human life and history.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (frē'drĭkh vĭl'hĕlm nē'chə), 1844-1900, German philosopher, b. Röcken, Prussia. The son of a clergyman, Nietzsche studied Greek and Latin at Bonn and Leipzig and was appointed to the chair of classical philology at Basel in 1869. In his early years he was friendly with the composer Richard Wagner, although later he was to turn against him. Nervous disturbances and eye trouble forced Nietzsche to leave Basel in 1879; he moved from place to place in a vain effort to improve his health until 1889, when he became hopelessly insane. Nietzsche was not a systematic philosopher but rather a moralist who passionately rejected Western bourgeois civilization. He regarded Christian civilization as decadent, and in place of its "slave morality" he looked to the superman, the creator of a new heroic morality that would consciously affirm life and the life values. That superman would represent the highest passion and creativity and would live at a level of experience beyond the conventional standards of good and evil. His creative "will to power" would set him off from "the herd" of inferior humanity. Nietzsche's thought had widespread influence but was of particular importance in Germany. Apologists for Nazism seized on much of his writing as a philosophical justification for their doctrines, but most scholars regard this as a perversion of Nietzsche's thought. Among his most famous works are The Birth of Tragedy (1872, tr. 1910); Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-91, tr. 1909, 1930), and Beyond Good and Evil (1886, tr. 1907).

Bibliography

See his selected letters ed. by C. Middleton (1969); biographies by C. K. Brinton (1941, repr. 1965), H. A. Reyburn (1948, repr. 1973), I. Frenzel (1967), R. Hayman (1980, repr. 1999), L. Chamberlain (1996), and C. Cate (2005); studies by H. L. Mencken (1913, repr. 1993), R. Pfefler (1972), R. C. Solomon, ed. (1973), W. A. Kaufmann (4th ed. 1974), J. T. Wilcox (1974), J. P. A. Stern (1979), R. Schacht (1983), G. Clive (1984), R. J. Hollingdale (1985), J. Köhler (tr. 1998), and R. C. Solomon and K. M. Higgins (2000).

World of the Mind: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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(1844–1900). Born at Röcken, Saxony, and brought up the son of a Lutheran pastor, he was a brilliant undergraduate at Bonn and Leipzig; and accepted the professorship of classical philology at Basel before graduating. He was a disciple of Schopenhauer, and Schopenhauer's 'will to power' was a basis of his philosophy that only the strong ought to survive, while sympathy perpetuates the unfit. His magnum opus is Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883–91; Eng. trans. Thus Spake Zarathustra). It develops the idea of the 'superman', which was taken up by George Bernard Shaw in his play Man and Superman (1903). Nietzsche died insane at Weimar.

(Published 1987)
    Bibliography
  • Safranski, R. (2003). Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography. Trans. S. Frisch.

Word Tutor: Nietzsche
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IN BRIEF: n. - Influential German philosopher remembered for his concept of the superman and for his rejection of Christian values.

Quotes By: Friedrich Nietzsche
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Quotes:

"How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to help us through life."

"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

"The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it."

"In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him."

"Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil."

"The invalid is a parasite on society. In a certain state it is indecent to go on living. To vegetate on in cowardly dependence on physicians and medicaments after the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost ought to entail the profound contempt of society."

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Artist: Friedrich Nietzsche
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  • Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
  • Country: Germany
  • Born: October 15, 1844 in Röcken
  • Died: August 25, 1900 in Weimar, Germany

Biography

Friedrich Nietzsche is of course better known as a philosopher than as a musician. But he was a composer of some note and a musicologist who wrote a fair amount on the direction and purpose of music. He initially admired Wagner's art, but eventually grew to reject it as inept, as he did the entire Romantic movement. Nietzsche composed almost all of his works from 1854 to 1874, writing in a Romantic though seldomly original style. Nietzsche's father, Ludwig, was a Lutheran minister, as were both of his grandfathers. Ludwig died when Friedrich was only five, but the child thrived in a home environment where his mother and sister were joined by his grandmother and two aunts. Nietzsche showed musical talent from an early age, becoming quite proficient on the piano in his childhood and writing many compositions in his teens. He was strongly encouraged by his family in his musical and educational activities. In 1858, he enrolled at the Pforta School, the most prestigious Protestant boarding school in Germany. He did well there, but began suffering from migraine headaches, an affliction he would endure throughout his life. In the years between 1861 - 1864, Nietzsche was at his most productive as a composer, turning out most of his piano oeuvre. Among the works were Da geht ein Bach and the Polish Dances (2), both from 1862. In 1864, he enrolled at the University of Bonn, where he studied classical philology and theology. By this time, he was already becoming skeptical of religious ideas he had been taught as a youth. Owing to an acrimonious climate at the university brought on by disagreements between the professors Otto Jahn and Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, Nietzsche transferred to the University of Leipzig the following year, where Ritschl took on a professorship. Nietzsche's studies were interrupted for a year by military service. An injury curtailed his length of duties, and he returned to Leipzig University in 1868. Nietzsche met Wagner that year and became a close friend and supporter for nearly 20 years. At that same time, Nietzsche was appointed a professor at the University of Basel in classical philology. He became a citizen of Switzerland the following year, and in 1870 he volunteered to serve in the Franco-Prussian War as a medical orderly. This military experience turned sour for him, as well: he contracted dysentery after one month and returned to Basel, but now with his health in steady decline. Nietzsche composed two piano duets in the years 1871 - 1874, Nachklang einer Sylversternacht and Manfred-Meditation, and he kept focused on music in other ways. As the decade wore on, he gradually turned against Wagner's art, not least because of the Christian references in Parsifal. His first book appeared in 1872, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. In 1879, he retired from his Basel post, but continued to write philosophical works. The years 1883 - 1885 saw the publication of two more books, The Gay Science and Thus Spake Zarathustra. Perhaps his most productive year was 1888: he wrote or finished Ecce Homo (his autobiography), Twilight of the Idols, The Anti-Christ, and Nietzsche Against Wagner. In 1889, Nietzsche collapsed in Turin and suffered a devastating mental breakdown, one from which he would never recover. Deranged, he spent time in an asylum in Basel, then was looked after by his mother until her death in 1897. His sister cared for him until his death from syphilitic paralysis. ~ Robert Cummings, All Music Guide
Wikipedia: Friedrich Nietzsche
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Western Philosophy
19th century philosophy
Full name Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Born October 15, 1844
Röcken bei Lützen, Prussia
Died August 25, 1900 (aged 55)
Weimar, German Empire
School/tradition Weimar Classicism; precursor to Continental philosophy, existentialism, postmodernism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis
Main interests aesthetics, ethics, ontology, philosophy of history, psychology, value-theory
Notable ideas Apollonian and Dionysian, death of God, eternal recurrence, herd-instinct, master-slave morality, Übermensch, perspectivism, will to power, ressentiment, der letzte Mensch

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhəlm ˈniːtʃə]) was a 19th- century German philosopher and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, using a distinctive German-language style and displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.

Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition, and to a lesser extent in analytic philosophy.

His key ideas include the interpretation of tragedy as an affirmation of life, an eternal recurrence (which numerous commentators have re-interpreted), a rejection of Platonism and a repudiation of both Christianity and egalitarianism (especially in the form of democracy and socialism).

Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. At the age of 24 he was appointed to the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel (the youngest individual ever to have held this position),[1] but resigned in 1879 because of health problems, which would plague him for most of his life. In 1889 he exhibited symptoms of insanity, living out his remaining years in the care of his mother and sister until his death in 1900.

Contents

Life

Youth (1844–69)

Born on October 15, 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who turned 49 on the day of Nietzsche's birth. (Nietzsche later dropped his given middle name, "Wilhelm".)[2] Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–1849), a Lutheran pastor and former teacher, and Franziska Oehler (1826–1897), married in 1843, the year before their son's birth, and had two other children: a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846, and a second son, Ludwig Joseph, born in 1848. Nietzsche's father died from a brain ailment in 1849; his younger brother died in 1850. The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsche's paternal grandmother and his father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house.

Nietzsche, 1861

Nietzsche attended a boys' school and then later a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug and Wilhelm Pinder, both of whom came from very respected families. In 1854, he began to attend the Domgymnasium in Naumburg, but after he showed particular talents in music and language, the internationally-recognised Schulpforta admitted him as a pupil, and there he continued his studies from 1858 to 1864. Here he became friends with Paul Deussen and Carl von Gersdorff. He also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. At Schulpforta, Nietzsche received an important introduction to literature, particularly that of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and for the first time experienced a distance from his family life in a small town Christian environment.

Nietzsche, 1864

After graduation in 1864 Nietzsche commenced studies in theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn. For a short time he and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft Frankonia. After one semester (and to the anger of his mother) he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith.[3] This may have happened in part because of his reading around this time of David Strauss's Life of Jesus, which had a profound effect on the young Nietzsche,[3] though in an essay entitled Fate and History written in 1862, Nietzsche had already argued that historical research had discredited the central teachings of Christianity.[4] Nietzsche then concentrated on studying philology under Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, whom he followed to the University of Leipzig the next year. There he became close friends with fellow-student Erwin Rohde. Nietzsche's first philological publications appeared soon after.

In 1865 Nietzsche thoroughly studied the works of Arthur Schopenhauer. In 1866 he read Friedrich Albert Lange's History of Materialism. Both thinkers proved influential. Schopenhauer was especially significant in the development of Nietzsche's later thought. Lange's descriptions of Kant's anti-materialistic philosophy, the rise of European Materialism, Europe's increased concern with science, Darwin's theory, and the general rebellion against tradition and authority greatly intrigued Nietzsche. The cultural environment encouraged him to expand his horizons beyond philology and to continue his study of philosophy.

In 1867 Nietzsche signed up for one year of voluntary service with the Prussian artillery division in Naumburg. However, a bad riding accident in March 1868 left him unfit for service.[5] Consequently Nietzsche turned his attention to his studies again, completing them and first meeting with Richard Wagner later that year.[6]

Professor at Basel (1869–79)

Mid-October 1871. From left: Erwin Rohde, Carl von Gersdorff, Nietzsche

In part because of Ritschl's support, Nietzsche received a remarkable offer to become professor of classical philology at the University of Basel. He was only 24 years old and had neither completed his doctorate nor received his teaching certificate. Despite the fact that the offer came at a time when he was considering giving up philology for science, he accepted.[7] To this day, Nietzsche is still among the youngest of the tenured Classics professors on record.[8] Before moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship: for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.[9]

Nevertheless, Nietzsche served in the Prussian forces during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871 as a medical orderly. In his short time in the military he experienced much, and witnessed the traumatic effects of battle. He also contracted diphtheria and dysentery. Walter Kaufmann speculates that he might also have contracted syphilis along with his other infections at this time, and some biographers speculate that syphilis caused his eventual madness, though there is some disagreement on this matter.[10] On returning to Basel in 1870 Nietzsche observed the establishment of the German Empire and the following era of Otto von Bismarck as an outsider and with a degree of skepticism regarding its genuineness. At the University, he delivered his inaugural lecture, "Homer and Classical Philology". Nietzsche also met Franz Overbeck, a professor of theology, who remained his friend throughout his life. African Spir,[11] a little-known Russian philosopher and author of Denken und Wirklichkeit (1873), and his colleague the historian Jacob Burckhardt, whose lectures Nietzsche frequently attended, began to exercise significant influence on Nietzsche during this time.

Nietzsche had already met Richard Wagner in Leipzig in 1868, and (some time later) Wagner's wife Cosima. Nietzsche admired both greatly, and during his time at Basel frequently visited Wagner's house in Tribschen in the Canton of Lucerne. The Wagners brought Nietzsche into their most intimate circle, and enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of the Bayreuth Festival Theatre. In 1870 he gave Cosima Wagner the manuscript of 'The Genesis of the Tragic Idea' as a birthday gift. In 1872 Nietzsche published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music. However, his colleagues in the field of classical philology, including Ritschl, expressed little enthusiasm for the work, in which Nietzsche forewent a precise philological method to employ a style of philosophical speculation. In a polemic, Philology of the Future, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff dampened the book's reception and increased its notoriety. In response, Rohde (by now a professor in Kiel) and Wagner came to Nietzsche's defense. Nietzsche remarked freely about the isolation he felt within the philological community and attempted to attain a position in philosophy at Basel, though unsuccessfully.

Nietzsche in Basel, ca. 1875

Between 1873 and 1876, Nietzsche published separately four long essays: David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer, On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, Schopenhauer as Educator, and Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. (These four later appeared in a collected edition under the title, Untimely Meditations.) The four essays shared the orientation of a cultural critique, challenging the developing German culture along lines suggested by Schopenhauer and Wagner. Starting in 1873 Nietzsche also accumulated the notes later posthumously published as Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. During this time, in the circle of the Wagners, Nietzsche met Malwida von Meysenbug and Hans von Bülow, and also began a friendship with Paul Rée, who in 1876 influenced him in dismissing the pessimism in his early writings. However, he was deeply disappointed by the Bayreuth Festival of 1876, where the banality of the shows and the baseness of the public repelled him. He was also alienated by Wagner's championing of 'German culture', which Nietzsche thought a contradiction in terms, as well as by Wagner's celebration of his fame among the German public. All this contributed to Nietzsche's subsequent decision to distance himself from Wagner.

With the publication of Human, All Too Human in 1878 (a book of aphorisms on subjects ranging from metaphysics to morality and from religion to the sexes) Nietzsche's reaction against the pessimistic philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer became evident, and also the infuence of African's Spir Denken und Wirklichkeit.[12] Nietzsche's friendship with Deussen and Rohde cooled as well. In 1879, after a significant decline in health, Nietzsche had to resign his position at Basel. (Since his childhood, various disruptive illnesses had plagued him — moments of shortsightedness practically to the degree of blindness, migraine headaches and violent stomach attacks. The 1868 riding accident and diseases in 1870 may have aggravated these persistent conditions, which continued to affect him through his years at Basel, forcing him to take longer and longer holidays until regular work became impractical.)

Independent philosopher (1879–88)

Because his illness drove him to find climates more conducive to his health, Nietzsche traveled frequently, and lived until 1889 as an independent author in different cities. He spent many summers in Sils Maria, near St. Moritz in Switzerland, and many winters in the Italian cities of Genoa, Rapallo and Turin and in the French city of Nice. In 1881, when France occupied Tunisia, he planned to travel to Tunis in order to gain a view of Europe from the outside, but later abandoned that idea (probably for health reasons).[13] While in Genoa, Nietzsche's failing eyesight prompted him to explore the use of typewriters as a means of continuing to write. He is known to have tried using the Hansen Writing Ball, a contemporary typewriter device.

Nietzsche occasionally returned to Naumburg to visit his family, and, especially during this time, he and his sister had repeated periods of conflict and reconciliation. He lived on his pension from Basel, but also received aid from friends. A past student of his, Peter Gast (born Heinrich Köselitz), became a sort of private secretary to Nietzsche. To the end of his life, Gast and Overbeck remained consistently faithful friends. Malwida von Meysenbug remained like a motherly patron even outside the Wagner circle. Soon Nietzsche made contact with the music-critic Carl Fuchs. Nietzsche stood at the beginning of his most productive period. Beginning with Human, All Too Human in 1878, Nietzsche would publish one book (or major section of a book) each year until 1888, his last year of writing, during which he completed five.

Lou Salomé, Paul Rée and Nietzsche, 1882.

In 1882 Nietzsche published the first part of The Gay Science. That year he also met Lou Andreas Salomé through Malwida von Meysenbug and Paul Rée. Nietzsche and Salomé spent the summer together in Tautenburg in Thuringia, often with Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth as chaperone. However, Nietzsche regarded Salomé less as an equal partner than as a gifted student. Salomé reports that he asked her to marry him and that she refused, though the reliability of her reports of events has come into question.[14] Nietzsche's relationship with Rée and Salomé broke up in the winter of 1882/1883, partially because of intrigues conducted by Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth. In the face of renewed fits of illness, in near isolation after a falling-out with his mother and sister regarding Salomé, and plagued by suicidal thoughts, Nietzsche fled to Rapallo, where he wrote the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in only ten days.

After severing his philosophical ties with Schopenhauer and his social ties with Wagner, Nietzsche had few remaining friends. Now, with the new style of Zarathustra, his work became even more alienating and the market received it only to the degree required by politeness. Nietzsche recognized this and maintained his solitude, though he often complained about it. His books remained largely unsold. In 1885 he printed only 40 copies of the fourth part of Zarathustra, and distributed only a fraction of these among close friends, including Helene von Druskowitz.

In 1883 he tried and failed to obtain a lecturing post at the University of Leipzig. It was made clear to him that, in view of the attitude towards Christianity and the concept of God expressed in Zarathustra, he had become in effect unemployable at any German University. The subsequent "feelings of revenge and resentment" embittered him. "And hence my rage since I have grasped in the broadest possible sense what wretched means (the depreciation of my good name, my character and my aims) suffice to take from me the trust of, and therewith the possibility of obtaining, pupils."[15]

In 1886 Nietzsche broke with his editor, Ernst Schmeitzner, disgusted by his anti-Semitic opinions. Nietzsche saw his own writings as "completely buried and unexhumeable in this anti-Semitic dump" of Schmeitzner — associating the editor with a movement that should be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind".[16] He then printed Beyond Good and Evil at his own expense, and issued in 1886-87 second editions of his earlier works (The Birth of Tragedy, Human, All Too Human, Dawn, and The Gay Science), accompanied by new prefaces in which he reconsidered his earlier works. Thereafter, he saw his work as completed for a time and hoped that soon a readership would develop. In fact, interest in Nietzsche's thought did increase at this time, if rather slowly and in a way hardly perceived by him. During these years Nietzsche met Meta von Salis, Carl Spitteler, and also Gottfried Keller. In 1886 his sister Elisabeth married the anti-Semite Bernhard Förster and traveled to Paraguay to found Nueva Germania, a "Germanic" colony — a plan to which Nietzsche responded with mocking laughter.[17] Through correspondence, Nietzsche's relationship with Elisabeth continued on the path of conflict and reconciliation, but they would meet again only after his collapse. He continued to have frequent and painful attacks of illness, which made prolonged work impossible. In 1887 Nietzsche wrote the polemic On the Genealogy of Morals.

During the same year Nietzsche encountered the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky, with whom he felt an immediate kinship.[18] He also exchanged letters with Hippolyte Taine, and then also with Georg Brandes. Brandes, who had started to teach the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard in the 1870s, wrote to Nietzsche asking him to read Kierkegaard, to which Nietzsche replied that he would come to Copenhagen and read Kierkegaard with him. However, before fulfilling this undertaking, he slipped too far into sickness and madness. In the beginning of 1888, in Copenhagen, Brandes delivered one of the first lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy.

Although Nietzsche had in 1886 announced (at the end of On The Genealogy of Morality) a new work with the title The Will to Power: Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values, he eventually seems to have abandoned this particular approach and instead used some of the draft passages to compose Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist (both written in 1888).[19]

His health seemed to improve, and he spent the summer in high spirits. In the fall of 1888 his writings and letters began to reveal a higher estimation of his own status and "fate." He overestimated the increasing response to his writings, especially to the recent polemic, The Case of Wagner. On his 44th birthday, after completing Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist, he decided to write the autobiography Ecce Homo. In the preface to this work — which suggests Nietzsche was well aware of the interpretive difficulties his work would generate — he declares, "Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else."[20] In December, Nietzsche began a correspondence with August Strindberg, and thought that, short of an international breakthrough, he would attempt to buy back his older writings from the publisher and have them translated into other European languages. Moreover, he planned the publication of the compilation Nietzsche Contra Wagner and of the poems that composed his collection Dionysian Dithyrambs.

Mental breakdown and death (1889–1900)

Photo by Hans Olde from the photographic series, The Ill Nietzsche, summer 1899

On January 3, 1889, Nietzsche suffered a collapse which seems to have triggered a psychotic break. Two policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the streets of Turin. What actually happened remains unknown, but the often-repeated tale states that Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms up around its neck to protect the horse, and then collapsed to the ground.[21]

In the following few days, Nietzsche sent short writings—known as the Wahnbriefe ("Madness Letters")—to a number of friends (including Cosima Wagner and Jacob Burckhardt). To his former colleague Burckhardt, Nietzsche wrote: "I have had Caiaphas put in fetters. Also, last year I was crucified by the German doctors in a very drawn-out manner. Wilhelm, Bismarck, and all anti-Semites abolished."[22] Additionally, he commanded the German emperor to go to Rome in order to be shot and summoned the European powers to take military action against Germany.[23]

On January 6, 1889 Burckhardt showed the letter he had received from Nietzsche to Overbeck. The following day Overbeck received a similarly revealing letter, and decided that Nietzsche's friends had to bring him back to Basel. Overbeck traveled to Turin and brought Nietzsche to a psychiatric clinic in Basel. By that time Nietzsche appeared fully in the grip of a serious mental illness, and his mother Franziska decided to transfer him to a clinic in Jena under the direction of Otto Binswanger. From November 1889 to February 1890 the art historian Julius Langbehn attempted to cure Nietzsche, claiming that the methods of the medical doctors were ineffective in treating Nietzsche's condition. Langbehn assumed progressively greater control of Nietzsche until his secrecy discredited him. In March 1890 Franziska removed Nietzsche from the clinic, and in May 1890 brought him to her home in Naumburg. During this process Overbeck and Gast contemplated what to do with Nietzsche's unpublished works. In January 1889 they proceeded with the planned release of Twilight of the Idols, by that time already printed and bound. In February they ordered a fifty copy private edition of Nietzsche contra Wagner, but the publisher C. G. Naumann secretly printed one hundred. Overbeck and Gast decided to withhold publishing The Antichrist and Ecce Homo because of their more radical content. Nietzsche's reception and recognition enjoyed their first surge.

Peter Gast would "correct" Nietzsche's writings even after the philosopher's breakdown and did so without his approval — something heavily criticized by contemporary Nietzsche scholarship.

In 1893 Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth returned from Nueva Germania (in Paraguay) following the suicide of her husband. She read and studied Nietzsche's works, and piece by piece took control of them and of their publication. Overbeck eventually suffered dismissal, and Gast finally cooperated. After the death of Franziska in 1897 Nietzsche lived in Weimar, where Elisabeth cared for him and allowed people, including Rudolf Steiner (who in 1895 had written one of the first books praising Nietzsche [24]) to visit her uncommunicative brother. Elisabeth at one point went so far as to employ Steiner–at a time when he was still an ardent fighter against any mysticism–as a tutor to help her to understand her brother's philosophy. Steiner abandoned the attempt after only a few months, declaring that it was impossible to teach her anything about philosophy.[25]

Commentators have frequently diagnosed a syphilitic infection as the cause of the illness. While most commentators regard Nietzsche's breakdown as unrelated to his philosophy, some, including Georges Bataille and René Girard, argue that his breakdown may have been caused by a psychological maladjustment brought on by his philosophy.[26][27] Manic-depressive illness with periodic psychosis, followed by vascular dementia was put forward[28]prior Schain's and Sax's studies [29]; Orth and Trimble confirm that frontotemporal dementia[30] is indicated rather than syphilis, but refrain from speculating as to the cause. A paper of 2008 by Hemelsoet, Hemelsoet and Devreese [31] agree that syphilis is contra-indicated, but argue against Sax's revival of Hildebrandt’s hypothesis of a benign brain tumor, positing instead a syndrome called CADASIL, which causes internal hernia of the cerebral blood-vessels increasing cranial pressure and causing dementia.

In 1898 and 1899 Nietzsche suffered at least two strokes which partially paralysed him and left him unable to speak or walk. After contracting pneumonia in mid-August 1900 he had another stroke during the night of August 24 / August 25, and died about noon on August 25.[32] Elisabeth had him buried beside his father at the church in Röcken bei Lützen. His friend, Gast, gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: "Holy be your name to all future generations!"[33] Nietzsche had written in Ecce Homo (at the time of the funeral still unpublished) of his fear that one day his name would be regarded as "holy".

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche compiled The Will to Power from Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks, and published it posthumously. Because his sister arranged the book based on her own conflation of several of Nietzsche's early outlines, and took great liberties with the material, the consensus holds that it does not reflect Nietzsche's intent. Indeed, Mazzino Montinari, the editor of Nietzsche's Nachlass, called it a forgery in The 'Will to Power' does not exist. For example, Elisabeth removed aphorism 35 of The Antichrist, where Nietzsche rewrote a passage of the Bible (see The Will to Power and Nietzsche's criticisms of anti-Semitism and nationalism).

Citizenship, nationality, ethnicity

Nietzsche is commonly classified as a “German” philosopher by professionals and non-specialists alike.[34] The modern unified nation-state called Germany did not yet exist at the time of his birth, but the German Confederation of states did, and Nietzsche was a citizen of one of these, Prussia – for a time. When he accepted his post at Basel, Nietzsche applied for the annulment of his Prussian citizenship.[35] The official response confirming the revocation of his citizenship came in a document dated April 17, 1869[36], and for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.

Nietzsche's feelings about his national identity were clearly complex. In Ecce Homo, he writes:

Even by virtue of my descent, I am granted an eye beyond all merely local, merely nationally conditioned perspectives; it is not difficult for me to be a "good European." On the other hand, I am perhaps more German than present-day Germans, mere citizens of the German Reich, could possibly be—I, the last anti-political German. And yet my ancestors were Polish noblemen: I have many racial instincts in my body from that source—who knows? [...] When I consider how often I am addressed as a Pole when I travel, even by Poles themselves, and how rarely I am taken for a German, it might seem that I have been merely externally sprinkled with what is German.[37]

A later revision of the same passage was discovered in 1969 among the papers of Peter Gast.[38] In it Nietzsche is even more adamant about his Polish Identity. “I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood.”[39] On yet another occasion Nietzsche stated: “Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins... I am proud of my Polish descent.”[40]

Philosophy

Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882.
Main article: Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche’s works did not reach a wide readership during his active writing career. However, in 1888 Georg Brandes (an influential Danish critic) aroused considerable excitement about Nietzsche through a series of lectures he gave at the University of Copenhagen. Then in 1894 Lou Andreas-Salomé published her book, Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken [Friedrich Nietzsche in His Works]. Andreas-Salomé had known Nietzsche well in the early 1880s, and she returned to the subject of Nietzsche, years later, in her work Lebensrückblick – Grundriß einiger Lebenserinnerungen [Looking Back: Memoirs] (written in 1932), which covered her intellectual relationships with Nietzsche, Rilke, and Freud. Nietzsche himself had acquired the publication-rights for his earlier works in 1886 and began a process of editing and re-formulation that placed the body of his work in a more coherent perspective.

In the years after his death in 1900, Nietzsche's works at last became better known. For example, the poet W.B. Yeats helped to raise awareness of Nietzsche in Ireland. [41] H.L. Mencken produced translations of Nietzsche's works that helped to increase knowledge of his philosophy in the United States. Nietzsche's growing prominence suffered a severe setback when he became closely associated with Adolf Hitler and the German Reich. A decade after World War II, there was a revival of Nietzsche's philosophical writings thanks to exhaustive translations and analyses by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. Others, well known philosophers in their own right, wrote commentaries on Nietzsche’s philosophy, including Martin Heidegger, who produced a four-volume study. Many 20th century thinkers (particularly in the tradition of continental philosophy) cite him as a profound influence, including notables Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze, whose philosophy of immanence has significant resonances with Nietzsche's will to power.

Nietzsche’s works remain controversial, and there is widespread disagreement about their interpretation and significance. Part of the difficulty in interpreting Nietzsche arises from the uniquely provocative style of his philosophical writing. Nietzsche frequently delivered trenchant critiques of Christianity and of philosophers such as Plato and Kant in the most offensive and blasphemous terms possible given the context of 19th century Europe. These aspects of Nietzsche's style run counter to traditional values in philosophical writing, and they alienated Nietzsche from the academic establishment both in his time and, to a lesser extent, today (when some analytic philosophers tend to dismiss Nietzsche as inconsistent and speculative, producing something other than "real" philosophy).

A few of the themes that Nietzsche scholars have devoted the most attention to include Nietzsche's views on morality, his view that "God is dead" (and along with it any sort of God's-eye view on the world thus leading to perspectivism), his notions of the will to power and Übermensch, and his suggestion of eternal return.

Morality

In Daybreak Nietzsche begins his "Campaign against Morality".[42] He calls himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticizes the prominent moral schemes of his day: Christianity, Kantianism, and utilitarianism. However, Nietzsche did not want to destroy morality, but rather to initiate a re-evaluation of the values of the Judeo-Christian world.[43] He indicates his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.[citation needed]

In both these works, Nietzsche's genealogical account of the development of master-slave morality occupies a central place. Nietzsche presents master-morality as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece. Here, value arises as a contrast between good and bad, or between 'life-affirming' and 'life-denying': wealth, strength, health, and power (the sort of traits found in a Homeric hero) count as good; while bad is associated with the poor, weak, sick, and pathetic (the sort of traits conventionally associated with slaves in ancient times).

Slave-morality, in contrast, comes about as a reaction to master-morality. Nietzsche associates slave-morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions. Here, value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and subservience; evil seen as worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive. Nietzsche sees slave-morality born out of the ressentiment of slaves. It works to overcome the slave's own sense of inferiority before the (better-off) masters. It does so by making out slave weakness to be a matter of choice, by, e.g., relabeling it as "meekness."

Nietzsche sees the slave-morality as a source of the nihilism that has overtaken Europe. In Nietzsche's eyes, modern Europe, and its Christianity, exists in a hypocritical state due to a tension between master and slave morality, both values contradictorily determining, to varying degrees, the values of most Europeans (who are "motley"). Nietzsche calls for exceptional people to no longer be ashamed of their uniqueness in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which Nietzsche deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. However, Nietzsche cautions that morality, per se, is not bad; it is good for the masses, and should be left to them. Exceptional people, on the other hand, should follow their own "inner law." A favorite motto of Nietzsche, taken from Pindar, reads: "Become what you are" (cf. to Kierkegaard's assertion, in Vol. 2 of Either/or, that in aesthetics you become what you become, whereas in ethics you are what you are).

Death of God, nihilism, perspectivism

Main articles: God is dead, nihilism, and perspectivism

The statement "God is dead," occurring in several of Nietzsche's works (notably in The Gay Science), has become one of his best-known remarks. On the basis of it, most commentators[44] regard Nietzsche as an atheist; others (such as Kaufmann) suggest that this statement reflects a more subtle understanding of divinity. In Nietzsche's view, recent developments in modern science and the increasing secularization of European society had effectively 'killed' the Christian God, who had served as the basis for meaning and value in the West for more than a thousand years.

Nietzsche claimed the death of God would eventually lead to the loss of any universal perspective on things, and along with it any coherent sense of objective truth.[45] Instead we would retain only our own multiple, diverse, and fluid perspectives. This view has acquired the name "perspectivism".

Alternatively, the death of God may lead beyond bare perspectivism to outright nihilism, the belief that nothing has any importance and that life lacks purpose. As Heidegger put the problem, "If God as the suprasensory ground and goal of all reality is dead, if the suprasensory world of the Ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory and above it its vitalizing and upbuilding power, then nothing more remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient himself."[46] Developing this idea, Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra, therein introducing the concept of a value-creating Übermensch. According to Lampert, "the death of God must be followed by a long twilight of piety and nihilism (II. 19; III. 8). […] Zarathustra's gift of the superman is given to a mankind not aware of the problem to which the superman is the solution."[47]

Will to power

Main article: Will to power

An important element of Nietzsche's philosophical outlook is the "will to power" (der Wille zur Macht), which provides a basis for understanding motivation in human behavior. But this concept may have wider application, as Nietzsche, in a number of places, also suggests that the will to power is a more important element than pressure for adaptation or survival.[48] In its later forms Nietzsche's concept of the will to power applies to all living things, suggesting that adaptation and the struggle to survive is a secondary drive in the evolution of animals, less important than the desire to expand one’s power. Nietzsche eventually took this concept further still, and transformed the idea of matter as centers of force into matter as centers of will to power. Nietzsche wanted to dispense with the theory of matter, which he viewed as a relic of the metaphysics of substance.[49] One study of Nietzsche defines his fully-developed concept of the will to power as "the element from which derive both the quantitative difference of related forces and the quality that devolves into each force in this relation" revealing the will to power as "the principle of the synthesis of forces."[50]

Nietzsche's notion of the will to power can also be viewed as a response to Schopenhauer's "will to live." Writing a generation before Nietzsche, Schopenhauer had regarded the entire universe and everything in it as driven by a primordial will to live, thus resulting in all creatures' desire to avoid death and to procreate. Nietzsche, however, challenges Schopenhauer's account and suggests that people and animals really want power; living in itself appears only as a subsidiary aim — something necessary to promote one's power. In defense of his view, Nietzsche appeals to many instances in which people and animals willingly risk their lives in order to promote their power, most notably in instances like competitive fighting and warfare. Once again, Nietzsche seems to take part of his inspiration from the ancient Homeric Greek texts he knew well: Greek heroes and aristocrats or "masters" did not desire mere living (they often died quite young and risked their lives in battle) but wanted power, glory, and greatness. In this regard he often mentions the common Greek theme of agon or contest.

In addition to Schopenhauer's psychological views, Nietzsche contrasts his notion of the will to power with many of the other most popular psychological views of his day, such as utilitarianism, which claims that all people fundamentally want to be happy (Nietzsche responds that only the Englishman wants that), and Platonism, which claims that people ultimately want to achieve unity with the good or in Christian neo-Platonism, with God. In each case, Nietzsche argues that the "will to power" provides a more useful and general explanation of human behavior.

Übermensch

Main article: Übermensch

Another concept important to an understanding of Nietzsche's thought is the Übermensch. While interpretations of Nietzsche's overman vary wildly, here are a few of his quotes from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Prologue, §§3–4):

I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? … All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.… The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth.… Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss … what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end."

Eternal return

Main article: Eternal return

Nietzsche's view on eternal return is similar to that of Hume: "the idea that an eternal recurrence of blind, meaningless variation—chaotic, pointless shuffling of matter and law—would inevitably spew up worlds whose evolution through time would yield the apparently meaningful stories of our lives. This idea of eternal recurrence became a cornerstone of his nihilism, and thus part of the foundation of what became existentialism." [51] Nietzsche was so impressed by this idea, that he at first thought he had discovered a new scientific proof of the greatest importance. He gradually backed off from this view, and in later works referred to it as a thought-experiment. [52]

The idea occurs in a parable in Sec. 341 of The Gay Science, and also in the chapter "Of the Vision and the Riddle" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, among other places. For further discussion, see Philosophy of Nietzsche.

Reading

The residence of Nietzsche's last three years, along with archive in Weimar, Germany, which holds many of Nietzsche's papers.
Main article: Library of Friedrich Nietzsche

As a philologist, Nietzsche had a thorough knowledge of Greek philosophy. He read Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and Arthur Schopenhauer,[53] who became his main opponents in his philosophy, and later Spinoza, whom he saw as his "precursor" in some respects[54] but as a personification of the "ascetic ideal" in others. However, Nietzsche referred to Kant as a "moral fanatic", Mill as a "blockhead", and of Spinoza he said: "How much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray?" The irony of the latter statement was pointed out by Russell, who noted that "Exactly the same may be said of him, with the less reluctance since he has not hesitated to say it of Spinoza."[55] Nietzsche expressed admiration for 17th century French moralists such as La Rochefoucauld, Jean de La Bruyère and Vauvenargues,[56] as well as for Stendhal.[57]

The organicism of Paul Bourget influenced Nietzsche,[58] as did that of Rudolf Virchow and Alfred Espinas.[59] Nietzsche early learned of Darwinism through Friedrich Lange.[60] Notably, he also read some of the posthumous works of Charles Baudelaire,[61] Tolstoy's My Religion, Ernest Renan's Life of Jesus and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Possessed.[61][62] Nietzsche called Dostoevsky "the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn."[63] Comments in several passages suggest that he responded strongly and favorably to the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. While Nietzsche never mentions Max Stirner, the similarities in their ideas have prompted a minority of interpreters to suggest he both read and was influenced by him.[64]

Reception

Main article: Influence and reception of Friedrich Nietzsche

Readers have responded to Nietzsche's work in complex and sometimes controversial ways. Many Germans eventually discovered his appeals for greater individualism and personality development in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but responded to those appeals divergently. He had some following among left-wing Germans in the 1890s; in 1894–95 German conservatives wanted to ban his work as subversive. During the late 19th century Nietzsche's ideas were commonly associated with anarchist movements and appear to have had influence within them, particularly in France and the United States.[65]

By World War I, however, he had acquired a reputation as an inspiration for right-wing German militarism. German soldiers even received copies of Thus Spoke Zarathustra as gifts during World War I.[66][67] The Dreyfus Affair provides another example of his reception: the French anti-semitic Right labelled the Jewish and Leftist intellectuals who defended Alfred Dreyfus as "Nietzscheans".[68] Nietzsche even had a distinct appeal for many Zionist thinkers at the turn of the century. It has been argued that his work influenced Theodore Herzl,[69] and Martin Buber went so far as to extoll Nietzsche as a "creator" and "emissary of life".[70]

Many political leaders of the twentieth century were at least superficially familiar with Nietzsche's ideas. However, it is not always possible to determine whether or not they actually read his work. Hitler, for example, probably never read Nietzsche, and if he did, his reading was not extensive.[71] although he was a frequent visitor to the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and did use expressions of Nietzsche's, such as "lords of the earth" in Mein Kampf.[72] The Nazis made very selective use of Nietzsche's philosophy; this association with National Socialism caused Nietzsche's reputation to suffer following World War II. Mussolini certainly read Nietzsche,[73] as did Charles de Gaulle.[74] It has been suggested that Theodore Roosevelt read Nietzsche and was profoundly influenced by him,[75] and in more recent years, Richard Nixon read Nietzsche avidly.[76]

Nietzschean ideas exercised a major influence on several prominent European philosophers, including Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre. In the Anglo-American tradition he has had a profound influence on Bernard Williams due to the scholarship of Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, which rehabilitated Nietzsche as a philosopher, and American philosophers such as Allan Bloom, Alexander Nehamas, William E. Connolly and Brian Leiter continue to study him today. A vocal minority of recent Nietzschean interpreters (Bruce Detwiler, Fredrick Appel, Domenico Losurdo, Abir Taha) have contested what they consider the popular but erroneous egalitarian misrepresentation of Nietzsche's "aristocratic radicalism". Bertrand Russell in his History of Western Philosophy was scathing in his chapter on Nietzsche, calling his work the "mere power-phantasies of an invalid" and referring to Nietzsche as a "megalomaniac".[77]

Works

Main article: List of works by Friedrich Nietzsche

Notes

  1. ^ Baird, Forrest E.; Walter Kaufmann (2008). From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 1011–1014. ISBN 0-13-158591-6. 
  2. ^ Kaufmann, Walter, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, p. 22.
  3. ^ a b Schaberg, William, The Nietzsche Canon, University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. 32
  4. ^ Jörg Salaquarda, "Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian tradition," in The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 99.
  5. ^ For Nietzsche's account of the accident and injury see his letter to Karl Von Gersdorff: Letter of Friedrich Nietzsche to Karl Von Gersdorff - June, 1868
  6. ^ A letter containing Nietzsche's description of the first meeting with Wagner.
  7. ^ Kaufmann, p. 25.
  8. ^ Paul Bishop, Nietzsche and Antiquity, 2004, p117
  9. ^ Hecker, Hellmuth: "Nietzsches Staatsangehörigkeit als Rechtsfrage", Neue Juristische Wochenschrift, Jg. 40, 1987, nr. 23, p. 1388-1391; and His, Eduard: "Friedrich Nietzsches Heimatlosigkeit", Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, vol. 40, 1941, p. 159-186. Note that some authors (among them Deussen and Montinari) mistakenly claim that Nietzsche became a Swiss citizen.
  10. ^ Richard Schain, The Legend of Nietzsche's Syphilis (Westwood: Greenwood Press, 2001
  11. ^ "A biography of Spir.". http://radicalacademy.com/adiphilunclassified3.htm#Spir. 
  12. ^ Rüdiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (trans. Shelley Frisch), W. W. Norton & Company, 2003, p. 161: "This work [Denken und Wirklichkeit] had long been consigned to oblivion, but it had a lasting impact on Nietzsche. Section 18 of Human, All Too Human cited Spir, not by name, but by presenting a "proposition by an outstanding logician" (2,38; HH I §18)
  13. ^ Stephan Güntzel, "Nietzsche's Geophilosophy", p.85 in: Journal of Nietzsche Studies 25 (Spring 2003), The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park (Penn State), 2003-10-15; re-published on HyperNietzsche's website (English)/(German)
  14. ^ Kaufmann, p.49
  15. ^ Letter to Peter Gast - August 1883
  16. ^ The Nietzsche Channel, Correspondences
  17. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online. "Förster-Nietzsche, Elisabeth." http://www.search.eb.com.librarypx.lclark.edu/eb/article-9034925 (Accessed October 10, 2008).
  18. ^ Letter to Peter Gast, March 1887.
  19. ^ Mazzino Montinari, Friedrich Nietzsche (1974; translated into German in 1991, Friedrich Nietzsche. Eine Einführung., Berlin-New York, De Gruyter; and in French, Friedrich Nietzsche, PUF, 2001)
  20. ^ From the Preface, section 1 (English translation by Walter Kaufmann)
  21. ^ Kaufmann, p. 67.
  22. ^ The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann.
  23. ^ Zweig, Stefan (1939) Master Builders [trilogy], The Struggle with the Daimon, Viking Press, p. 524.
  24. ^ Rudolf Steiner: Friedrich Nietzsche, ein Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit. Weimar 1895
  25. ^ Andrew Bailey, First Philosophy: Fundamental Problems and Readings in Philosophy, Broadview Press, 2002, p704
  26. ^ Georges Bataille & Annette Michelson, Nietzsche's Madness, October, Vol. 36, Georges Bataille: Writings on Laughter, Sacrifice, Nietzsche, Un-Knowing. (Spring, 1986), pp. 42-45.
  27. ^ René Girard, Superman in the Underground: Strategies of Madness—Nietzsche, Wagner, and Dostoevsky, MLN, Vol. 91, No. 6, Comparative Literature. (December, 1976), pp. 1161-1185
  28. ^ E.M. Cybulska (August 2000). The madness of Nietzsche: a misdiagnosis of the millennium? Hospital Medicine, 61 (8):571-575
  29. ^ ""Nietzsche 'died of brain cancer'"". http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/05/1051987657451.html. 
  30. ^ "Friedrich Nietzsche's mental illness--general paralysis of the insane vs. frontotemporal dementia" in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 2006 December;114(6):439-44; summarised in PubMed
  31. ^ Hemelsoet, Hemelsoet and Devreese, “The Neurological Illness of Friedrich Nietzsche” Acta Neurologica Belgium 108(2008) pp. 9-16. [1]
  32. ^ Concurring reports in Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche's biography (1904) and a letter by Mathilde Schenk-Nietzsche to Meta von Salis, August 30, 1900, quoted in Janz (1981) p. 221. Cf. Volz (1990), p. 251.
  33. ^ Schain, Richard. "Nietzsche's Visionary Values — Genius or Dementia?
  34. ^ General commentators and Nietzsche scholars, whether emphasizing his cultural background or his language, overwhelmingly label Nietzsche as a "German philosopher". For example: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Source: Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction (See Preview on Amazon); Britannica; The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, page 1. Others do not assign him a nationalist category. For example: Edward Craid (editor): The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of philosophy. Abingdon: Routledge, 2005, pages 726-741; Simon Blackburn: The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 252-253; Jonathan Rée and J. O. Urmson, ed (2005) [1960]. The Concise encyclopedia of western philosophy (3rd edition ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 267–270. ISBN 0-415-32924-8. 
  35. ^ Er beantragte also bei der preussischen Behörde seine Expatrierung [Translation:] "He accordingly applied to the Prussian authorities for expatrification". Curt Paul Janz: Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie volume 1. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1978, page 263.
  36. ^ German text available as Entlassungsurkunde für den Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche aus Naumburg in Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari: Nietzsche Briefwechsel: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Part I, Volume 4. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993. ISBN 3 11 012277 4, page 566.
  37. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecco Homo, Why I Am So Wise, 3 (trans. by W. Kaufmann)
  38. ^ Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes what One is. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale, Micheal Tanner. (New York: Penguin Classics, 1992), 106.
  39. ^ Some recently translations use this latter text. See: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings: And Other Writings. Translated by Judith Norman, Aaron Ridley. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 77.
  40. ^ Henry Louis Mencken, "The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche", T. Fisher Unwin, 1908, reprinted by University of Michigan 2006, pg. 6, [2]
  41. ^ Everdell, William (1998). The First Moderns. Chicago: U Chicago Press. pp. 508. ISBN 0226224813. 
  42. ^ Kaufmann, p.187. (Ecce Homo-M I)
  43. ^ Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Antichrist. Grand Rapids: Kessinger, 2004: 4,8,18,29,37,40,51,57,59. Print.
  44. ^ Morgan, George Allen (1941). What Nietzsche Means. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 36. 
  45. ^ Lampert, Nietzsche's Teaching, 17–8; Heidegger, "The Word of Nietzsche."
  46. ^ Heidegger, "The Word of Nietzsche," 61.
  47. ^ Lampert, Nietzsche's Teaching, 18.
  48. ^ Beyond Good & Evil 13, Gay Science 349 & Genealogy of Morality II:12
  49. ^ Nietzsche comments in many notes about matter being a hypothesis drawn from the metaphysics of substance, see G. Whitlock, "Roger Boscovich, Benedict de Spinoza and Friedrich Nietzsche: The Untold Story," Nietzsche-Studien 25, 1996 p207
  50. ^ Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche ad Philosophy, translated by Hugh Tomlinson, 2006, p46
  51. ^ Dennett, D. C. (1995), Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, Simon & Schuster
  52. ^ "For a clear reconstruction of Nietzsche's uncharacteristically careful deduction of what he once described as "the most scientific of hypotheses," see Danto 1965, pp. 201-9- For a discussion and survey of this and other interpretations of Nietzsche's no-torious idea of eternal recurrence, see Nehamas 1980, which argues that by "scientific" Nietzsche meant specifically "not-teleological." A recurring—but, so far, not eternally recurring—problem with the appreciation of Nietzsche's version of the eternal recur-rence is that, unlike Wheeler, Nietzsche seems to think that this life will happen again not because it and all possible variations on it will happen over and over, but because there is only one possible variation—this one—and it will happen over and over." Dennett, D. C. (1995), Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, Simon & Schuster
  53. ^ Brobjer, Thomas. Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library, 1885-1889. Published in Journal of History of Ideas. Accessed via JSTOR on May 18, 2007.
  54. ^ Letter to Franz Overbeck, July 30, 1881
  55. ^ Russell, Bertrand, History of Western Philosophy, Routledge, 2004, pp 693-697
  56. ^ Brendan Donnellan, "Nietzsche and La Rochefoucauld" in The German Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 3 (May, 1979), pp. 303-318 (English)
  57. ^ See for example Ecce Homo, "Why I am So Clever", §3
  58. ^ Johan Grzelczyk, "Féré et Nietzsche : au sujet de la décadence", HyperNietzsche, 2005-11-01 (French). Grzelczyk quotes Jacques Le Rider, Nietzsche en France. De la fin du XIXe siècle au temps présent, Paris, PUF, 1999, pp.8-9
  59. ^ Johan Grzelczyk, "Féré et Nietzsche : au sujet de la décadence", HyperNietzsche, 2005-11-01 (French). Grzelczyk quotes B. Wahrig-Schmidt, "Irgendwie, jedenfalls physiologisch. Friedrich Nietzsche, Alexandre Herzen (fils) und Charles Féré 1888" in Nietzsche Studien, Band 17, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988, p.439
  60. ^ Note sur Nietzsche et Lange : « le retour éternel », Albert Fouillée, Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger. An. 34. Paris 1909. T. 67, S. 519-525 (on French Wikisource)
  61. ^ a b Mazzino Montinari, "La Volonté de puissance" n'existe pas, Éditions de l'Éclat, 1996, §13
  62. ^ Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, pp. 306-340.
  63. ^ Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889, §45).
  64. ^ K. Löwith, From Hegel To Nietzsche, New York, 1964, p187; S. Taylor, Left Wing Nietzscheans, The Politics of German Expressionism 1910-1920, p144, 1990, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York; G. Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, (translated by Hugh Tomlinson), 2006, pp153-154; R. C. Solomon & K. M. Higgins, The Age of German Idealism, p300, Routledge, 1993; R. A. Samek, The Meta Phenomenon, p70, New York, 1981; T. Goyens, Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement In New York City, p197, Illinois, 2007; a special treatise on that question is: Bernd A. Laska: Nietzsche's initial crisis In: Germanic Notes and Reviews, 33 (2): 109-133.
  65. ^ O. Ewald, "German Philosophy in 1907", in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 17, No. 4, July, 1908, pp. 400-426; T. A. Riley, "Anti-Statism in German Literature, as Exemplified by the Work of John Henry Mackay", in PMLA, Vol. 62, No. 3, September, 1947, pp. 828-843; C. E. Forth, "Nietzsche, Decadence, and Regeneration in France, 1891-95", in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 54, No. 1, January, 1993, pp. 97-117
  66. ^ Steven E. Aschheim notes that "[a]bout 150,000 copies of a specially durable wartime Zarathustra were distributed to the troops" in The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890-1990, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992, p135
  67. ^ Kaufmann, p.8
  68. ^ Schrift, A.D. (1995). Nietzsche's French Legacy: A Genealogy of Poststructuralism. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-91147-8.
  69. ^ Francis R. Nicosia, Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p36; Jacob Golomb, Nietzsche and Zion, Cornell University Press, 2004, pp 25-27; against the view of particular influence on Herzl, see: Gabriel Sheffer, U.S.-Israeli Relations at the Crossroads, Routledge, 1997, p170
  70. ^ Jacob Golomb (Ed.), Nietzsche and Jewish Culture, Routledge, 1997, pp 234-235
  71. ^ Weaver Santaniello, Nietzsche, God, and the Jews, SUNY Press, 1994, p41: "Hitler probably never read a word of Nietzsche"; Berel Lang, Post-Holocaust: Interpretation, Misinterpretation, and the Claims of History, Indiana University Press, 2005, p162: "Arguably, Hitler himself never read a word of Nietzsche; certainly, if he did read him, it was not extensively"; Jacob Golomb, Nietzsche and Jewish Culture, Routledge, 1997, p9: "To be sure, it is almost certain that Hitler either never read Nietzsche directly or read very little."; Andrew C. Janos, East Central Europe in the Modern World, Stanford University Press, 2002, p184: "By all indications, Hitler never read Nietzsche. Neither Mein Kampf nor Hitler's Table Talk (Tischgesprache) mentions his name. Nietzschean ideas reached him through the filter of Alfred Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century, and, more simply, through what was coffeehouse Quatsch in Vienna and Munich. This at least is the impression he gives in his published conversations with Dietrich Eckart."
  72. ^ William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a History of Nazi Germany, Touchstone, 1959, p100-101
  73. ^ Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy, University of California Press, 2000, p44: "In 1908 he presented his conception of the superman's role in modern society in a writing on Nietzsche entitled, "The Philosophy of Force."; Philip Morgan, Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945, Routledge, 2003, p21: "We know that Mussolini had read Nietzsche"
  74. ^ J. L. Gaddis, P. H. Gordon, E. R. May, J. Rosenberg, Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb, Oxford University Press, 1999, p217: "The son of a history teacher, de Gaulle read voraciously as a boy and young man — Jacques Bainville, Henri Bergson, Friederich [sic] Nietzsche, Maurice Barres — and was steeped in conservative French historical and philosophical traditions."
  75. ^ H. L. Mencken (Ed.), The Selected Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilder Publications, 2008, p153 (referring to Roosevelt's published speech The Strenuous Life): "It is inconceivable that Mr. Roosevelt should have formulated his present confession of faith independently of Nietzsche".; Georges Sorel (trans. J. Stanley), Essays in Socialism and Philosophy, Transaction Publishers, 1987, p214 "J. Bourdeau has pointed out the strange similarity which exists between the ideas of Andrew Carnegie and Roosevelt, and those of Nietzsche: Carnegie deploring the wasting of money on the support of incompetents, Roosevelt appealing to Americans to become conquerors, a race of predators."
  76. ^ Monica Crowley, Nixon in Winter, I.B.Tauris, 1998, p351: "He read with curious interest the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche [...] Nixon asked to borrow my copy of Beyond Good and Evil, a title that inspired the title of his final book, Beyond Peace."
  77. ^ Russell, Bertrand, History of Western Philosophy, Routledge, 2004, pp 693-697

References

  • Deleuze, Gilles (1983). Nietzsche and Philosophy. trans. Hugh Tomlinson. Athlone Press. ISBN 0485112337. 
  • Kaufmann, Walter (1974). Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691019835. 
  • Lampert, Laurence (1986). Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300044305. 
  • Magnus and Higgins, "Nietzsche's works and their themes", in The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, Magnus and Higgins (ed.), University of Cambridge Press, 1996, pp. 21–58. ISBN 0521367670
  • O'Flaherty, James C., Sellner, Timothy F., Helm, Robert M., "Studies in Nietzsche and the Classical Tradition" (University of North Carolina Press)1979 ISBN 0-08078-8085-X
  • O'Flaherty, James C., Sellner, Timothy F., Helm, Robert M., ""Studies in Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian Tradition" (University of North Carolina Press)1985 ISBN 0-8078-8104-X
  • Porter, James I. "Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future" (Stanford University Press, 2000). ISBN 0804736987
  • Porter, James I. "The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on The Birth of Tragedy" (Stanford University Press, 2000). ISBN 0804737002
  • Seung, T.K. Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005. ISBN 0739111302
  • Tanner, Michael (1994). Nietzsche. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192876805. 
  • Wicks, Robert. "Friedrich Nietzsche". in Edward N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 Edition ed.). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/nietzsche/. 
  • Baird, Forrest E.; Walter Kaufmann (2008). From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 1011–1038. ISBN 0-13-158591-6. 

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From Today's Highlights
April 4, 2005

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

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