Regular updates for H19-374 Exam Questions for 3 months. Plato continued along this path in his dialogues, and the modern world eventually inherited reason at the expense of artistic impulses found in the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy. Although Nietzsche had previously 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 seems to have abandoned this idea and, instead, used some of the draft passages to compose Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist in 1888.[100]. His works remain controversial, due to varying interpretations and misinterpretations. In the end, a past student of his, Heinrich Köselitz or Peter Gast, became a private secretary to Nietzsche. "Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library, 1885–1889". It may also be asked whether perspectivism can be asserted consistently without self-contradiction, since perspectivism must presumably be true in an absolute, that is a nonperspectival sense. The sustaining values of Western civilization have been sublimated products of decadence in that the ascetic ideal endorses existence as pain and suffering. His inaugural lecture at the university was "Homer and Classical Philology". Humanity still has no goal." He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. [268] He also expressed deep appreciation for Stifter's Indian Summer,[269] Byron's Manfred and Twain's Tom Sawyer. Nietzsche remarked freely about the isolation he felt within the philological community and attempted unsuccessfully to transfer to a position in philosophy at Basel. [89] I have had Caiaphas put in fetters. After his death, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche became the curator and editor of her brother's manuscripts. The three traveled with Salomé's mother through Italy and considered where they would set up their "Winterplan" commune. "Nietzsche's Breakdown in Turin." In its preface—which suggests Nietzsche was well aware of the interpretive difficulties his work would generate—he declares, "Hear me! Salomé's mother took her to Rome when Salomé was 21. "IDYLLIC HEROISM: NIETZSCHE'S VIEW OF EPICURUS.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies, no. During these years Nietzsche met Meta von Salis, Carl Spitteler, and Gottfried Keller. Nietzsche’s mature philosophy emerged after The Gay Science. ", Nietzsche, Friedrich. He likely suffered from clinical hemiparesis/hemiplegia on the left side of his body by 1899. According to Nietzsche, the Judeo-Christian tradition, for example, made suffering tolerable by interpreting it as God’s intention and as an occasion for atonement. "[77] Nietzsche scholar Joachim Köhler [de] has attempted to explain Nietzsche's life history and philosophy by claiming that he was homosexual. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation and later admitted that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers whom he respected, dedicating the essay "Schopenhauer as Educator" in the Untimely Meditations to him. In the years after Nietzsche's death in 1900, his works became better known, and readers have responded to them in complex and sometimes controversial ways. Pp. [228][229][230][231] Writing about nihilism in Also Sprach Zarathustra, Nietzsche introduced a value-creating Übermensch, not as a project, but as an anti-project, the absence of any project. Such interpretations, however, cannot be sustained by reference to his published works. Is this thesis true absolutely or only from a certain perspective? At the core of his theory is a rejection of atomism—the idea that matter is composed of stable, indivisible units (atoms). While criticizing nihilism and Nietzsche together as a sign of general decay,[184] he still commended him for recognizing psychological motives behind Kant and Hume's moral philosophy:[185], For it was Nietzsche's historic achievement to understand more clearly than any other philosopher ... not only that what purported to be appeals of objectivity were in fact expressions of subjective will, but also the nature of the problems that this posed for philosophy. 8). Thomas Mann's novel Death in Venice[296] shows a use of Apollonian and Dionysian, and in Doctor Faustus Nietzsche was a central source for the character of Adrian Leverkühn. [252] In 1867 Nietzsche wrote in a letter that he was trying to improve his German style of writing with the help of Lessing, Lichtenberg and Schopenhauer. 1988. [203] Its cause, in his opinion, was the growth in European nationalism and the endemic "jealousy and hatred" of Jewish success. [188], "Slave morality" developed as a reaction to master morality. What have you done to overcome him? 115 letters 1874–1886 | Correspondences", "The lost 'Aryan utopia' of Nueva Germania", "Nietzsches Briefe. Towards a Genealogy of the Gay Science: From Toulouse and Barcelona to Nietzsche and Beyond. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20717687. [61] As early as his 1862 essay "Fate and History", Nietzsche had argued that historical research had discredited the central teachings of Christianity,[62] but David Strauss's Life of Jesus also seems to have had a profound effect on the young man. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval, yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. [171] He notes that whenever Apollonian culture dominates, the Dionysian lacks the structure to make a coherent art, and when Dionysian dominates, the Apollonian lacks the necessary passion. 15, 1998, pp. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made. He also shared Nietzsche's view of tragedy. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Nietzsche stood at the beginning of his most productive period. Emilio Carlo Corriero, "Nietzsche's Death of God and Italian Philosophy". [65] There, he became close friends with his fellow student Erwin Rohde. Steiner abandoned the attempt after only a few months, declaring that it was impossible to teach her anything about philosophy. [271] Many Germans eventually discovered his appeals for greater individualism and personality development in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but responded to them divergently. He concluded that metaphysics has reached its potential and that the ultimate fate and downfall of metaphysics was proclaimed with the statement "God is dead."[210]. With the collapse of metaphysical and theological foundations and sanctions for traditional morality only a pervasive sense of purposelessness and meaninglessness would remain. Writer Donald Mitchell noted that Gustav Mahler was "attracted to the poetic fire of Zarathustra, but repelled by the intellectual core of its writings." [99] He also exchanged letters with Hippolyte Taine and Georg Brandes. Allan Megill argues that, while Köhler's claim that Nietzsche was conflicted about his homosexual desire cannot simply be dismissed, "the evidence is very weak," and Köhler may be projecting twentieth-century understandings of sexuality on nineteenth-century notions of friendship. "[96] He then printed Beyond Good and Evil at his own expense. [201] An Israeli historian who performed a statistical analysis of everything Nietzsche wrote about Jews claims that cross-references and context make clear that 85% of the negative comments are attacks on Christian doctrine or, sarcastically, on Richard Wagner. Only the overman will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return. Nietzsche was surreptitiously accompanied to a "call house" from which he clumsily escaped upon seeing "a half dozen apparitions dressed in sequins and veils." He also began a friendship with Paul Rée who, in 1876, influenced him into dismissing the pessimism in his early writings. The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering depicted by characters on stage, passionately and joyously affirmed life, finding it worth living. [244], Nietzsche's philosophy, while innovative and revolutionary, was indebted to many predecessors. [276], W.B. Let you 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. The good/evil contrast arose when slaves avenged themselves by converting attributes of mastery into vices. Afrikan Spir, a little-known Russian philosopher responsible for the 1873 Thought and Reality and Nietzsche's colleague, the famed historian Jacob Burckhardt, whose lectures Nietzsche frequently attended, began to exercise significant influence on him.[80]. "Unger, Castoriadis, and the Romance of a National Future. Hamlet falls under this category—he glimpsed the supernatural reality through the Ghost, he has gained true knowledge and knows that no action of his has the power to change this. While in Genoa, Nietzsche's failing eyesight prompted him to explore the use of typewriters as a means of continuing to write. [110] Langbehn assumed progressively greater control of Nietzsche until his secretiveness discredited him. [226] With each repeat of events is the hope that some knowledge or awareness is gained to better the individual, hence "And thus it will happen one day that a man will be born again, just like me and a woman will be born, just like Mary—only that it is hoped to be that the head of this man may contain a little less foolishness...."[226]. On his 44th birthday, after completing Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist, he decided to write the autobiography Ecce Homo. She reworked Nietzsche's unpublished writings to fit her own German nationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. von Müller, Hans. Nietzsche saw his own writings as "completely buried and in this anti-Semitic dump" of Schmeitzner—associating the publisher with a movement that should be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (/ˈniːtʃə, ˈniːtʃi/;[32] German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtʃə] (listen) or [ˈniːtsʃə];[33][34] 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, writer, and philologist whose work has exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history. This letter contains the following statement: Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire....[64]. "Nietzsche's Aesthetic Solution to the Problem of Epigonism in the Nineteenth Century." [43] Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favor of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and related theory of master–slave morality;[36][44][i] the aesthetic affirmation of existence in response to the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism;[36] the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterization of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. [115] Nietzsche had previously written, "All superior men who were irresistibly drawn to throw off the yoke of any kind of morality and to frame new laws had, if they were not actually mad, no alternative but to make themselves or pretend to be mad." "Anti-Statism in German Literature, as Exemplified by the Work of John Henry Mackay. To be "bad" was to be like the slaves over whom the aristocracy ruled: poor, weak, sick, pathetic—objects of pity or disgust rather than hatred. [147] One theory blames Salomé's view on sexuality as one of the reasons for her alienation from Nietzsche. Both may be read as symptoms of a declining life, or life in distress. ", Nietzsche, "Die Florentinischer Tractat über Homer und Hesiod", in. "[307] Israel Eldad, the ideological chief of the Stern Gang that fought the British in Palestine in the 1940s, wrote about Nietzsche in his underground newspaper and later translated most of Nietzsche's books into Hebrew. [309] The plays The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed are examples of Nietzsche's influence on him. It could seem that the overman, in being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Overbeck and Gast decided to withhold publishing The Antichrist and Ecce Homo because of their more radical content. "[81] Nietzsche enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of the Bayreuth Festival. Living off his pension from Basel and aid from friends, Nietzsche traveled frequently to find climates more conducive to his health and lived until 1889 as an independent author in different cities. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. [181][182], Among his critique of traditional philosophy of Kant, Descartes, and Plato in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche attacked the thing in itself and cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") as unfalsifiable beliefs based on naive acceptance of previous notions and fallacies. [58] Perhaps under Ortlepp's influence, he and a student named Richter returned to school drunk and encountered a teacher, resulting in Nietzsche's demotion from first in his class and the end of his status as a prefect.[59]. The Russian painter Lena Hades created the oil painting cycle Also Sprach Zarathustra dedicated to the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche's concept "God is dead" applies to the doctrines of Christendom, though not to all other faiths: he claimed that Buddhism is a successful religion that he complimented for fostering critical thought. For him, women had to sacrifice themselves to the care and benefit of men. His friend and secretary Gast gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: "Holy be your name to all future generations! [215], Related to his theory of the will to power is his speculation, which he did not deem final,[216] regarding the reality of the physical world, including inorganic matter—that, like man's affections and impulses, the material world is also set by the dynamics of a form of the will to power. Nietzsche found in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that transcended the pessimism found in the so-called wisdom of Silenus. "[141] Nietzsche believed his name might have been Germanized, in one letter claiming, "I was taught to ascribe the origin of my blood and name to Polish noblemen who were called Niëtzky and left their home and nobleness about a hundred years ago, finally yielding to unbearable suppression: they were Protestants. He spent his winters in the Italian cities of Genoa, Rapallo, and Turin and the French city of Nice. He is known to have tried using the Hansen Writing Ball, a contemporary typewriter device. Perspectivism also denies the possibility of an all-inclusive perspective, which could contain all others and, hence, make reality available as it is in itself. "Genealogy and Jurisprudence: Nietzsche, Nihilism, and the Social Scientification of Law.". Nietzsche often identified life itself with the “will to power,” that is, with an instinct for growth and durability. Hence, the title of the aphorism, "On The Thousand And One Goal". ", Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Influence and reception of Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche's ideas were commonly associated with anarchist movements, Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Homer_and_Classical_Philology, "Shakespeare Contra Nietzsche by Andrew Lanham", "Der Philosoph Philipp Mainländer entdeckt das Nirwanaprinzip: Die Welt als Gottes Selbstmordprojekt", "Féré et Nietzsche : au sujet de la décadence", 'Madness' of Nietzsche was cancer not syphilis, Metaphors in and for the Sociology of Religion: Towards a Theory after Nietzsche, The Duality of Nietzsche's Theory of the Will to Power: The Psychological and Cosmological Aspects, "100 years after death, Nietzsche's popularity keeps growing", "Nietzsche's aesthetic critique of Darwin", "Ernst Schmeitzner (1851–1895). On 3 January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown. J.N. [221], "Eternal return" (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a hypothetical concept that posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, for an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. Mencken produced the first book on Nietzsche in English in 1907, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, and in 1910 a book of translated paragraphs from Nietzsche, increasing knowledge of his philosophy in the United States. Between 1873 and 1876, he published four separate 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". It extols reason and science, experiments with literary genres, and expresses Nietzsche’s emancipation from his earlier Romanticism and from Schopenhauer and Wagner. Nietzsche called for exceptional people not to be ashamed in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which he deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. ... 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? [citation needed] Knut Hamsun counted Nietzsche, along with Strindberg and Dostoyevsky, as his primary influences. [1987] 1988. [200] He indicated his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself. ", The initial form of morality was set by a warrior aristocracy and other ruling castes of ancient civilizations. Friedrich Nietzsche, Alexandre Herzen (fils) und Charles Féré 1888. Only the fertile interplay of these two forces brought together as an art represented the best of Greek tragedy.[172]. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. "[144] Colli and Montinari, the editors of Nietzsche's assembled letters, gloss Nietzsche's claims as a "mistaken belief" and "without foundation. 1941. Nietzsche and Salomé spent the summer together in Tautenburg in Thuringia, often with Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth as a chaperone. It does so by making out slave weakness, for example, to be a matter of choice, by relabeling it as "meekness". For other uses, see, A strict example of a cause-and-effect mismatch, with regard to the God-creator as the cause and our concepts as the effects, is perhaps not fully stressed in the ". [114] This 1887 letter to Fritsch ended by: "And finally, how do you think I feel when the name Zarathustra is mouthed by anti-Semites? [108] Nietzsche's reception and recognition enjoyed their first surge. It is difficult to say which author was more compromised by that gesture. [53][better source needed], In 1854, he began to attend Domgymnasium in Naumburg. [224] As Heidegger pointed out in his lectures on Nietzsche, Nietzsche's first mention of eternal recurrence presents this concept as a hypothetical question rather than stating it as fact. "German Philosophy in 1907. [300][301] The Dreyfus affair provided a contrasting example of his reception: the French antisemitic Right labelled the Jewish and leftist intellectuals who defended Alfred Dreyfus as "Nietzscheans". [227], Another concept important to understanding Nietzsche is the Übermensch (Overman). [250] The organicism of Paul Bourget influenced Nietzsche,[251] as did that of Rudolf Virchow and Alfred Espinas. Soon Nietzsche made contact with the music-critic Carl Fuchs. While the three spent a number of weeks together in Leipzig in October 1882, the following month Rée and Salomé ditched Nietzsche, leaving for Stibbe (today Zdbowo in Poland)[91] without any plans to meet again. 2004. It is a purely physical concept, involving no supernatural reincarnation, but the return of beings in the same bodies. In the fall of 1888, his writings and letters began to reveal a higher estimation of his own status and "fate". The name derives from the forename Nikolaus, abbreviated to Nick; assimilated with the Slavic Nitz; it first became Nitsche and then Nietzsche. The overman does not follow the morality of common people since that favors mediocrity but rises above the notion of good and evil and above the "herd". [170] Stimulated by this state, a person's artistic will is enhanced: In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever wills is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. In 1886, Nietzsche broke with his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner, disgusted by his antisemitic opinions. [258][259] Nietzsche called Dostoyevsky "the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn. [107], On 6 January 1889, Burckhardt showed the letter he had received from Nietzsche to Overbeck. 105–12 in, Leonard Sax, "What was the cause of Nietzsche's dementia? In 1876, Gast transcribed the crabbed, nearly illegible handwriting of Nietzsche's first time with Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. Frederick Delius produced a piece of choral music, A Mass of Life, based on a text of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, while Richard Strauss (who also based his Also sprach Zarathustra on the same book), was only interested in finishing "another chapter of symphonic autobiography. Elaborating on the conception of Hamlet as an intellectual who cannot make up his mind, and is a living antithesis to the man of action, Nietzsche argues that a Dionysian figure possesses the knowledge that his actions cannot change the eternal balance of things, and it disgusts him enough not to act at all. It was used to overcome the slave's sense of inferiority before their (better-off) masters. [322] Bertrand Russell wrote that Nietzsche had exerted great influence on philosophers and on people of literary and artistic culture, but warned that the attempt to put Nietzsche's philosophy of aristocracy into practice could only be done by an organization similar to the Fascist or the Nazi party. In 1865, Nietzsche thoroughly studied the works of Arthur Schopenhauer. He also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. The person who could accept recurrence without self-deception or evasion would be a superhuman being (Übermensch), a superman whose distance from the ordinary man is greater than the distance between man and ape, Nietzsche says. Nietzsche recognized this and maintained his solitude, though he often complained. However, in 1888 the influential Danish critic Georg Brandes aroused considerable excitement about Nietzsche through a series of lectures he gave at the University of Copenhagen. (Daybreak, 14) The diagnosis of syphilis has since been challenged and a diagnosis of "manic-depressive illness with periodic psychosis followed by vascular dementia" was put forward by Cybulska prior to Schain's study. "[158], In a letter of 1887, Nietzsche claimed, "There has never been a philosopher who has been in essence a musician to such an extent as I am," although he also admitted that he "might be a thoroughly unsuccessful musician. And the triumph of meaninglessness is the triumph of nihilism: “God is dead.” Nietzsche thought, however, that most people could not accept the eclipse of the ascetic ideal and the intrinsic meaninglessness of existence but would seek supplanting absolutes to invest life with meaning. This concept appears only in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and is presented as a condition that would render the creation of the overman impossible.[236]. [138] Nietzsche wrote in 1888, "My ancestors were Polish noblemen (Nietzky); the type seems to have been well preserved despite three generations of German mothers. According to Heidegger, it is the burden imposed by the question of eternal recurrence—whether it could possibly be true—that is so significant in modern thought: "The way Nietzsche here patterns the first communication of the thought of the 'greatest burden' [of eternal recurrence] makes it clear that this 'thought of thoughts' is at the same time 'the most burdensome thought. After graduation in September 1864,[60] Nietzsche began studying theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn in the hope of becoming a minister. [240], A trained philologist, Nietzsche had a thorough knowledge of Greek philosophy. However, before fulfilling this promise, he slipped too far into illness. The owner of NIETZSCHE is D Gilbert, M Lawrence, A Bruce, G Wills and his current trainer is Brian Ellison. NIETZSCHE. Nietzsche has influenced philosophers such as Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre,[326] Oswald Spengler,[327] George Grant,[328] Emil Cioran,[329] Albert Camus, Ayn Rand,[330] Jacques Derrida,[citation needed], Sarah Kofman,[331] Leo Strauss,[332] Max Scheler, Michel Foucault, Bernard Williams,[citation needed] and Nick Land. Nietzsche's thought is the negation of the idea of a history of salvation. Ihre Kritik an Nietzsche geht weit über die Kritik an Nietzsches Antikebild hinaus, auf die ich mich hier beschränke. "Nietzsches Staatsangehörigkeit als Rechtsfrage. Nietzsche also met Franz Overbeck, a professor of theology who remained his friend throughout his life. Porter, James I. She studied Nietzsche's works and, piece by piece, took control of their publication. Friedrich Nietzsche was also a pretty decent classical composer", "Hear Classical Music Composed by Friedrich Nietzsche: 43 Original Tracks", "Nietzsche's Apollonianism and Dionysiansism: Meaning and Interpretation", "SparkNotes: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): The Birth of Tragedy", "Culture and perspectivism in Nietzsche's and Weber's view", "Why Heidegger's 'History' of Metaphysics is Dead", "Zen and Zarathustra: Self-Overcoming without a Self", Féré et Nietzsche: au sujet de la décadence, Note sur Nietzsche et Lange: "Le retour éternel", "Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843)", 1910 article from the Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Romantics of 1909: Arthur Symons, Pierre Lasserre and T.E. Alexander Nehamas writes in Nietzsche: Life as Literature of three ways of seeing the eternal recurrence: Nehamas concluded that, if individuals constitute themselves through their actions, they can only maintain themselves in their current state by living in a recurrence of past actions (Nehamas, 153). He nonetheless was happy to continue with the plans for an academic commune. [223] The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life, a reaction to Schopenhauer's praise of denying the will‐to‐live. Biographical timeline of events in Nietzsche's life. In 1879, after a significant decline in health, Nietzsche had to resign his position at Basel. Schopenhauer's doctrine—which Nietzsche also referred to as Western Buddhism—advocates separating oneself from will and desires to reduce suffering.