friedrich nietzsche
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Friedrich Nietzsche
• Born : 15 October 1844
Röcken Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia
• Died : 25 August 1900 (aged 55)
Weimar, Saxony, German Empire
• Residence : Germany
• Nationality: German
• Era : 19th Century Philosophy
• Region : Western Philosophy
• Main Interest: Aesthetics · Ethics Metaphysics · Nihilism
Psychology · Ontology Poetry · Value theory
Voluntarism · Philosophy of history
Friedrich Nietzsche
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became
one of the most influential of all modern thinkers.
Named after King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who turned forty-nine on
the day of Nietzsche's birth. (Nietzsche later dropped his middle name
"Wilhelm".
Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–49), a Lutheran pastor and
former teacher, and Franziska Oehler (1826–97), married in 1843, the year
before their son's birth.
Philosophy
Nietzsche is known for his use of poetry and prose (sometimes together
in poetic prose style) in his writings. An excellent example is his iconic
phrase "God is dead", in German: Gott ist tot..
Nietzsche's writings are the unique case of free revolutionary thought that
is revolutionary in its structure and problems but isn't tied to any
revolutionary project at all.
Nietzsche begins his "Campaign against Morality". He calls himself an
"immoralist" and harshly criticizes the prominent moral philosophies of his
day: Christianity, Kantianism, and utilitarianism.
Will To Power (der Wille zur Macht)
A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical
outlook which provides a basis for
understanding human behavior—more so
than competing explanations, such as the
ones based on pressure for adaptation or
survival.
As a youthful disciple of Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was
influenced by the older philosopher's critique of reason and by his suggestion
that art, as an expression of genius, afforded a glimpse of being-in-itself.
Nietzsche's encounter with Attic tragedy led him to a reevaluation of Greek
culture that would have a momentous impact on modern thought and
literature. In a path breaking dissertation that was ultimately published in 1872
as The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, Nietzsche claimed that the
dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles represented the high point of Greek
culture, whereas the philosophy of Plato and Platonism constituted a decline.
Nietzsche's study culminated in a withering critique of Socrates and the
Western philosophical tradition engendered by his method of logical
analysis and argumentation—elenchos, or dialectic. “Our whole modern
world,” Nietzsche laments, “is caught in the net of Alexandrian
[Hellenistic] culture and recognizes as its ideal the man of theory, equipped
with the highest cognitive powers, working in the service of science, and
whose archetype and progenitor is Socrates.”
Nietzsche's Mature Philosophy
Nietzsche's writings fall into three well-defined periods. The early works, The Birth of
Tragedy and the four Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (1873; Untimely Meditations), are
dominated by a Romantic perspective influenced by Schopenhauer and Wagner. The
middle period, from Human, All-Too-Human up to The Gay Science, reflects the
tradition of French aphorists. It extols reason and science, experiments with literary
genres, and expresses Nietzsche's emancipation from his earlier Romanticism and
from Schopenhauer and Wagner. Nietzsche's mature philosophy emerged after The
Gay Science.
Nietzsche's Influence
Nietzsche once wrote that some men are born posthumously, and this
is certainly true in his case. The history of 20th-century philosophy,
theology, and psychology are unintelligible without him.
The theologians Paul Tillich and Lev Shestov acknowledged their
debt as did the “God is dead” theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer; Martin
Buber, Judaism's greatest 20th-century thinker, counted Nietzsche
among the three most important influences in his life and
translated the first part of Zarathustra into Polish.
Novelists like Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, André Malraux, André
Gide, and John Gardner were inspired by him and wrote about him, as did
the poets and playwrights George Bernard Shaw, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan
George, and William Butler Yeats, among others.
Nietzsche is certainly one of the most influential philosophers who ever lived;
and this is due not only to his originality but also to the fact that he was the
German language's most brilliant prose writer.