Friedrich Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844 in Röcken bei Lützen, Prussian Province of Saxony, Germany. He was a German philosopher best known for challenging the beliefs of Christianity’s dogma and ethical values.
Nietzsche’s philosophy relied on the idea of the growth of the individual. He rejoiced the divinity of humanity rather than one of a higher power. He is most famous for his statement “God is dead,” which rejects Christianity and forces humanity to find purpose within itself. His concept of the Übermensch, a super-human or superman, is the finest execution of this belief, presented in his novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Known as one of the first existentialists, he conceived the notion of “life-affirmation.” “Life affirmation”
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For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed."
The beauty of Nietzsche’s philosophy lies in his prose. His thought and written word are poetically intellectual. His theologies on morality, the meaning of existence and the individual have influenced philosophers, such as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault; the founding fathers of psychology, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud and writers, such as Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. Without a doubt he is one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, inspiring every field of theology and art.
Nietzsche died on August 25, 1900 in Weimar, Germany. The cause of his death remains a mystery. The final decade of his life were spent in a state of mental incapacitation, he suffered from insanity. Historians believed his insanity might have been attributed to many causes, such as a brain disease, tumor, syphilis, or the excessive use of sedative
In philosophy “Nihilism” is a position of radical skepticism. It is the belief that all values are baseless and nothing is known. The word “Nihilism” itself conveys a sense of abolishing or destroying (IEP). Nietzsche’s work and writings are mostly associated with nihilism in general, and moral nihilism especially. Moral nihilism questions the reality and the foundation of moral values. Nietzsche supported his view on morality by many arguments and discussions on the true nature of our inner self. Through my paper on Moral Nihilism, I will explain 5 major arguments and then try to construct a deductive argument for each, relying on Nietzsche’s book II “Daybreak”.
...d of a Buddhist koan, which is intended to break the hold of logic on the mind. However, rather than breaking the hold of logic on the mind, Nietzsche, with his jibing remarks, swashbuckling writing style, self-contradictions, and secrecy, is intending to break the hold of socially determined "masks," or Isms, from the perceptions of the new philosopher who will arise the day after tomorrow. Nietzsche shows us how to philosophize without Isms. The only question remaining is whether we are strong enough to take his advice.
Nietzsche’s society depended more on the human’s strength, human nature was seen weak if someone lacks to specific strength. And so because of the society’s stresses and pressures, humans were seen as machines. There was the sense of frustration to be original and creative and that’s why Nietzsche thought that human should be led by a hero.
During the latter parts of the Nineteenth Century, the German existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a great deal on his ideas of morality, values, and life. His writings were controversial, but they greatly affected European thought. It can be argued that Nietzschean philosophy was a contributing factor in the rise of what is considered our world's most awful empire, the Third Reich.
Leiter, Brian. “Nietzsche’s Moral and Political Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University, 26 August 2004.
Sigismund Schlomo Freud, most commonly known as Sigmund Freud, was born on May 6th, 1856. He was born in what is now the Czech Republic to Jacob and Amalia. The oldest of eight, Sigmund was highly intelligent, speaking several different languages and graduated at a young age. He attended the University of Vienna to study medicine where he graduated with his MD at the age of 25.
Nietzsche's critique of religion is largely based on his critique of Christianity. Nietzsche says that in modern Europe, people are atheistic, even though they don't realise it. People who say they are religious aren't really and those who say they have moved on haven't actually moved on. Certain people in society retain features of Christianity. For example, socialists still believe in equality in all people.
Nietzsche wrote a piece called “God Is Dead”. Nietzsche wrote this piece based upon his view point of Christianity. Nietzsche rejected the Christian morality and believed that Christianity in Western Europe was heading into the wrong direction. “Christianity is Platonism for the people” was said by Nietzsche because, Plato believed that there was a better or pure world and could be accomplished by going back to the world we used to live. In another sense, Plato focused on a past life and ideas that came from that life to have a successful pure life. Nietzsche’s view of religion, he believed that by focusing on the scientism part of the religion, religion all together was moving from bad to worse. By saying “God Is Dead” which can be judged
...ns, he loses validity in his critique of objective thinkers such as Aquinas. His arguments’ inherent contradictions undermine his own assertions and do nothing to lessen the validity of objective claims to truth either. This is again not to agree with Aquinas, but to point out that Nietzsche is still working in a system correspondence in order to refute the correspondence theory of truth. Nietzsche’s primary contribution to ethical theory is the realization that we no longer truly believe in God, that we must confront the consequences of this moral and spiritual gap in our lives and look for something to replace Him. His writings contain criticisms of these new replacements such as skepticism, nihilism, feminism, democracy, utilitarianism and scientific positivism, but these criticisms I don’t believe justify the demarcation of ‘False’ by Nietzsche’s own standards.
Existentialism could be defined as a philosophical theory that focuses on the individual person being a free and responsible person who determines his or her own development through acts of will. Existentialism is a thesis that has been discussed by some of the greatest philosophical minds ever to live. Minds such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche all had their own view on what existentialism was and major impact on the development of this thesis. Each of these philosophies played a huge influence on a great mind that would come later on in history. That was the mind of Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre, who is considered one of the great philosophical minds, based many of his ideas around the idea of existentialism and phenomenology. Throughout this paper we will take an extensive look into the life and mind of Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Life has no meaning a priori. Life itself is nothing until it is lived, it is we who give it meaning, and value is nothing more than the meaning we give it” (Satre 51).
Martin Heidegger is one of the most influential and highly regarded existential philosophers of the 20th century. Born in Meβkirch, Germany on September 26th 1889, Heidegger began his plight with life and theories of existentialism. Early in his life, Heidegger was influenced by Kierkegaard, and Edmund Husserl, which taught him the ideas of hermeneutics and phenomenology. Together, their ideas helped create one of Heidegger’s main ideas, his emphasis on being an authentic human being or “Dasein,” which translates “there Being.” The authenticity or Eigentlichkeit (own-ness) Heidegger preached was that a human being should strive to be an individual, to bring meaning to our lives. And if one does not seek to be an individual, Heidegger warns that they are doomed to dissolve into society and have no real life, a life controlled not by the ideas of the being, but of the society they belong to. Ultimately resulting in a life wasted because the being never formulated their own meaning to life.
Friedrich Nietzsche was without a doubt one of the most influential thinkers of the 19th century. He was a man who ventured to question all of man's beliefs. He was out to seek the important questions in life, not always their answers. Some consider Nietzsche to be one of the first existentialist philosophers along with Søren Kierkegaard. He was the inspiration for many philosophers, poets, sociologists, and psychologists including Sigmund Freud. His goal to seek explanations for society's commonly accepted values was an inspiration for Freud's psychoanalysis theory1. Nietzsche's life as well as his theories such as the will to power, the Übermensch, eternal recurrence, and his thoughts on religion all had a momentous affect on 19th and 20th century philosophy.
All of Friedrich Nietzsche quotes were made before the age of 44. For the last 11 years of his life, he had no use of his mental capabilities. While many of Friedrich Nietzsche quotes were focused on religion, or the fallacy of it, it would be interesting to see what he would have written about later in his life and if his opinion would have changed. Although, the statement 'God is dead' did come from him, so there would likely have been no change in how he viewed religion. Many of his quotes are focused on human behavior and existence, and following are some that moved me.
Nietzsche’s ideas are most clearly reflected in Roy Cohn: a power driven, “heterosexual” lawyer, “who fucks around with guys” (Kushner 52). Nietzsche’s writings emphasize mankind’s natural desire to gain power. This desire serves as a driving force behind all of man’s actions. Nietzsche also asserted that traditional morality was an institution established to curb society’s scramble for power. Due to this belief, Nietzsche claimed man must cast aside traditional morality, as it is serves as a roadblock, in order to be more successful in his quest for power. The superman was a concept he introduced, meaning a type of man who is able to access great power as a result of releasing himself from social restraints. This was the ultimate form of mankind, and only is possible when he releases moral obligation and restraint completely, and it can be argued that Roy Cohn is Kushner’s superman.