Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche ( /ˈniːtʃə/; ; October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony, and aphorism.
Nietzsche's key ideas include the "death of God", the Übermensch, the eternal recurrence, the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism, and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation", which involves questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent and radical those views might be. His influence remains substantial within philosophy, notably in existentialism, post-modernism, and post-structuralism, as well as outside it. His radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth has been the focus of extensive commentary, especially in the continental tradition.
Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. In 1869, at the age of twenty-four he was appointed to the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel (the youngest individual to have held this position), but resigned in the summer of 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life. At the age of forty-five in 1889 he suffered a collapse and a complete loss of his mental faculties. The breakdown had been ascribed to atypical general paralysis attributed to tertiary syphilis, but this diagnosis has since come into question. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897, then under the care of his sister until his death in 1900.
His sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche acted as curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts during his illness. She was married to a prominent German nationalist and antisemite, Bernhard Förster, and she reworked some of Nietzsche's unpublished writings to fit her husband's ideology, often in ways contrary to Nietzsche's opinions, which were strongly and explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism (see Nietzsche's criticism of anti-Semitism and nationalism). Through Förster-Nietzsche's editions, Nietzsche's name became associated with German militarism and Nazism, but twentieth century scholars have worked hard to counteract the abuse of Nietzsche's philosophy by this ideology and rediscover the original writings of Nietzsche, unedited by his sister.
Read more about Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosophy, Reading and Influence, Reception, Works
Famous quotes by friedrich nietzsche:
“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. Such is the nature of all living things.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“You utilitarians, you too love everything useful only as a vehicle of your inclinationsyou too really find the noise of its wheels intolerable?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“What is wantedwhether this is admitted or notis nothing less than a fundamental remolding, indeed weakening and abolition of the individual: one never tires of enumerating and indicting all that is evil and inimical, prodigal, costly, extravagant in the form individual existence has assumed hitherto, one hopes to manage more cheaply, more safely, more equitably, more uniformly if there exist only large bodies and their members.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“Men seldom persevere in a vocation unless they believe or can convince themselves that it is fundamentally more important than any other calling. Women are the same with their lovers.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“Lifethat is: continually shedding something that wants to die. Lifethat is: being cruel and inexorable against everything about us that is growing old and weakand not only about us. Lifethat is, then: being without reverence for those who are dying, who are wretched, who are ancient? Constantly being a murderer?And yet old Moses said: Thou shalt not kill.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)