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Explain Like I'm Five: Existentialism and Friederich Nietzsche

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Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

nietzschen, nietzschenne

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Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (prononc en allemand [fid vlhlm nits], souvent francis en [nit]) est un philologue, philosophe et pote allemand n le 15 octobre 1844 Rcken, en Prusse, et mort le 25 aot 1900 Weimar, en Allemagne.

L'uvre de Nietzsche est essentiellement une critique de la culture occidentale moderne et de l'ensemble de ses valeurs morales (issues de la dvaluation chrtienne du monde), politiques (la dmocratie, l'galitarisme), philosophiques (le platonisme , mais surtout le socratisme, et toutes les formes de dualisme mtaphysique) et religieuses (le christianisme et le bouddhisme). Cette critique procde d'un projet de dvaluer ces valeurs et d'en instituer de nouvelles dpassant le ressentiment et la volont de nant qui ont domin l'histoire de l'Europe sous l'influence du christianisme; ceci notamment par l'affirmation d'un ternel Retour du mme et par le dpassement de l'humanit et l'avnement du surhomme. L'expos de ses ides prend dans l'ensemble une forme aphoristique ou potique.

Peu reconnu de son vivant, son influence a t et demeure importante sur la philosophie contemporaine de tendance continentale, notamment l'existentialisme et la philosophie postmoderne; mais Nietzsche a galement suscit ces dernires annes l'intrt de philosophes analytiques, ou de langue anglaise, qui en soutiennent une lecture naturaliste remettant en cause une appropriation par la philosophie continentale juge problmatique[1].

Professeur de philologie l'universit de Ble ds l'ge de 24 ans, il obtient un cong en 1879 pour raison de sant. Les dix annes suivantes, il publie un rythme rapide ses uvres majeures. En 1889, il sombre progressivement dans la dmence et passe les dix dernires annes de sa vie dans un tat mental quasi vgtatif[2]. Aprs sa mort, l'interprtation de son uvre est dfigure par l'image de la folie et par la propagande nazie.

La pense de Nietzsche prsente deux aspects majeurs: cest une enqute naturaliste , ou plutt organique, sur lensemble des valeurs humaines (morales, intellectuelles, religieuses, esthtiques,etc.) que Nietzsche explique en termes d'instincts, d'affects et de pulsions (en allemand: Trieb); c'est galement une critique de ces mmes valeurs et une tentative pour les rvaluer[3]

,[1].

Dans ses recherches sur la nature des phnomnes humains, qui occupent ses uvres de maturit partir de Humain, trop humain (1878), Nietzsche adopte une forme de naturalisme qualifie de mthodologique par certains commentateurs[2]: par naturalisme, on entend lide que lenqute philosophique doit se dvelopper en continuit avec les sciences naturelles[3]. Cette interprtation sappuie sur l'utilisation que Nietzsche fait d'auteurs tel que Wilhelm Roux, et sur des passages tel que:

[] ce que lon comprend aujourdhui de lhomme nexcde pas ce que lon peut comprendre de lui en tant que machine[4].

Mais ce qui caractrise particulirement ce naturalisme, c'est le rejet de toutes les formes de surnaturalisme (moral ou religieux) qui placent lesprit au-dessus de la nature et qui font de lui un principe explicatif des phnomnes humains par une causalit spirituelle (comme lme ou la volont qui serait au principe de nos actions). Or, pour Nietzsche, lesprit nexplique rien, et ce nest qu partir des sciences empiriques que la philosophie peut spculer sur la nature humaine et fournir des explications de tout ce qui est humain:

Replonger lhomme dans la nature; faire justice des nombreuses interprtations vaniteuses aberrantes et sentimentales quon a griffonnes sur cet ternel texte primitif de lhomme naturel [][5].

Partageant avec le matrialisme allemand qui lui est contemporain lide que lhomme est un produit de la nature[6], Nietzsche sefforce de rendre compte du phnomne humain en termes psycho-physiologiques, ce qui se traduit chez lui par une thorie des types. Brian Leiter a ainsi formul et rsum cette thorie:

Toute personne a une constitution psycho-physiologique fixe qui la dfinit comme un type particulier de personne[7].

Par exemple, lun des traits typiques les plus clbres est la Volont de puissance qui joue un rle explicatif fondamental, puisque, selon Nietzsche,

Toute bte [] tend instinctivement vers un optimum de conditions favorables au milieu desquelles elle peut dployer sa force et atteindre la plnitude du sentiment de sa puissance; [][8].

Selon cette mthodologie, toute personne adopte alors ncessairement les valeurs qui forment la philosophie du type de personne qu'elle est[9]. Les traits psychologiques qui caractrisent ces personnes sont donc comme des faits naturels, et ces faits expliquent les ides et les valeurs qui apparaissent. Les explications des ides et des valeurs humaines se prsenteront alors sous la forme suivante:

Les croyances intellectuelles dune personne sexpliquent par ses croyances morales; ses croyances morales sont expliques par des traits naturels caractristiques du type de personne quelle est[10].

Ce naturalisme ne doit cependant pas tre rduit une conception matrialiste, cette dernire tant explicitement rejete par Nietzsche[11]. Les faits psychologiques, soutient Nietzsche, peuvent tre expliqus en termes physiologiques; mais cela ne conduit pas ncessairement soutenir que les faits psychologiques ne sont rien dautres que des faits physiologiques[12]. Dans l'expression naturalisme mthodologique, ladjectif mthodologique signifie donc que Nietzsche nadopte pas la forme substantielle de naturalisme qu'est le matrialisme, mais qu'il explique nanmoins les phnomnes humains d'aprs les sciences de la nature. Ce rejet du substantialisme laisse ouverte la possibilit de spculer sur la nature humaine en ne la fixant pas dfinitivement dans les termes des sciences de la nature, ce qui laisse galement ouverte la possibilit d'une rvaluation des valeurs, lautre aspect majeur de la pense nietzschenne[13]:

[] lhomme est un animal dont les qualits ne sont pas encore fixes[14].

Ce que des commentateurs rcents[15] nomment le naturalisme de Nietzsche est donc son rejet de toutes les formes de transcendances qui ne peuvent que falsifier la comprhension historique et psychologique de l'homme; Nietzsche les remplace par le projet, qu'il nomme gnalogie, d'une explication de l'homme comme tre entirement corporel et animal dirig par des pulsions et des affects qui expliquent ses croyances. Nietzsche est ainsi en ce sens un philosophe de la nature humaine et a pu de ce fait tre rapproch de David Hume et de Freud[16].

Le second aspect principal de la pense de Nietzsche est la rvaluation des valeurs, au premier rang desquelles les valeurs morales et mtaphysiques (le bien et le vrai, par exemple), qu'il soumet la mthode gnalogique. Ce projet se manifeste, de La Naissance de la tragdie ses dernires uvres, par la recherche des conditions et des moyens de l'ennoblissement et de l'lvation de l'homme[17]. Aussi nombre de commentateurs ont-ils soulign que le thme fondamental et constant de la pense de Nietzsche, travers les nombreuses variations de ses crits, est le problme de la culture ou levage, problme qui comprend la question de la hirarchie et de la dtermination des valeurs propres favoriser cette lvation[18].

Lenqute naturaliste sur lorigine des valeurs est utilise dans ce projet afin de montrer que les valeurs qui rgnent en Occident depuis la naissance du christianisme, et dont on trouve selon Nietzsche les prmisses chez Platon influenc par Socrate, sont nfastes et ont t des instruments de domination qui ont rendu lhumanit malade. Le projet nietzschen de rvaluation embrasse donc une partie critique, omniprsente dans son uvre, qui doit conduire la destruction des valeurs de l'idalisme platonicien et chrtien qui font obstacle l'panouissement crateur de l'homme et qui, selon Nietzsche, menacent de conduire l'humanit au dernier homme.

Au cours de sa vie, Nietzsche a exprim cette volont d'une lvation de l'homme de diverses manires. Elle se rencontre soit sous la forme dune mtaphysique d'artiste, soit dune tude historique des sentiments et des reprsentations moraux humains, soit enfin sous la forme dune affirmation de l'existence tragique, au travers des notions de Volont de puissance, d'ternel Retour et de Surhomme. Ces thmes, sans s'exclure, se succdent, parfois en s'approfondissant et s'entremlant les uns aux autres, comme lorsque la philosophie de l'affirmation se prsente sous la forme d'une exaltation de la puissance cratrice humaine.

L'uvre de Nietzsche a parfois t divise en trois priodes, en mettant en avant la prminence de l'un ou l'autre de ces thmes[19]. On distingue ainsi une priode comprenant La Naissance de la Tragdie et les Considrations Inactuelles, priode pendant laquelle Nietzsche s'engage, sous l'influence de Schopenhauer et de Wagner, en faveur d'une renaissance culturelle de la civilisation allemande. La deuxime priode est la priode positiviste (de Humain, trop humain au Gai Savoir); Nietzsche rompt avec le wagnrisme, et dveloppe une pense historique et psychologique influence par les moralistes franais. La troisime priode va de Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra ses derniers textes; c'est la priode de maturit teinte d'un mysticisme symbolis par l'ternel Retour.

Cette priodisation a t conteste plusieurs reprises[20], ce qui souligne une difficult pour l'interprtation des textes de Nietzsche: que cette priodisation soit ou non exacte, le devenir de la pense de Nietzsche demeure un fait difficile apprhender et restituer pour tous les commentateurs, difficult qui fut accrue par les premires ditions des fragments posthumes[21].

Nietzsche a laiss de nombreux cahiers de notes, reprsentant quelques milliers de pages qui ont maintenant toutes t publies et traduites en franais. Le problme que posent ces textes est de savoir quelle place leur donner dans linterprtation de sa pense. Certains commentateurs en ont fait une expression de sa philosophie, au mme titre que les uvres publies. Dans cette ide, des notions peu prsentes dans ces dernires peuvent se retrouver mises en avant, comme ces notions juges fondamentales que sont la Volont de puissance, lternel Retour et le Surhomme. De nombreux commentateurs ont ainsi crit des tudes reposant trs largement sur ces textes posthumes (par exemple Heidegger, Pierre Montebello, Barbara Stiegler).

Dautres, en revanche, comme Karl Schlechta, tenant compte du fait que les fragments de Nietzsche ne sont souvent que des bauches de ses uvres publies, et quil a en outre manifest le souhait de voir ses carnets dtruits aprs sa mort[22], estiment que ces textes ne peuvent pas tre lgitimement utiliss pour dterminer exactement la pense de Nietzsche. Ces textes qu'il a laisss de ct devraient en effet tre tenus pour obsoltes, et ils ne peuvent tout au plus quclairer la gense des livres de Nietzsche qui, seuls, expriment la pense de ce dernier.

Ces difficults de lecture des uvres de Nietzsche sont encore accentues par la forme stylistique quil a choisie partir de Humain, trop humain. Il dcide en effet d'exposer sa pense sous la forme d'aphorismes qui se suivent plus ou moins thmatiquement, ou qu'il regroupe par chapitre. Nietzsche a donn plusieurs explications ce choix. Ces explications touchent autant le travail de l'exposition de la pense que celui de la rception de cette pense par un lecteur.

Dans le premier cas, il s'agit d'viter d'crire des traits systmatiques, alors que toute pense est, pour Nietzsche, toujours en devenir. La forme rigide du trait dtruit la vie de la pense, tandis que l'aphorisme conserve quelque chose de la spontanit philosophique. Dans le second cas, il s'agit d'interdire l'accs aux textes un lecteur press qui ne voudrait pas se donner la peine de repenser ce qu'il lit[23]. Ainsi explique-t-il dans Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra au discours Lire et crire: "Celui qui crit en aphorismes et avec du sang, celui-l ne veut pas tre lu, mais appris par cur". Nietzsche dcrit ainsi ses textes comme un labyrinthe dont on doit trouver le fil qui mnera travers tous les aphorismes. On peut toutefois remarquer que Nietzsche a au contraire crit ses dernires uvres avec le souci d'tre compris[24].

la suite de ces difficults de lecture des uvres de Nietzsche, plusieurs mthodes d'exposition de sa pense sont utilises. Certains, comme Eugen Fink, retracent le dveloppement intellectuel de Nietzsche, en soulignant la relative autonomie de chaque priode; d'autres, comme Heidegger, privilgient l'tude des notions de la dernire priode de Nietzsche, notions considres comme l'expression de la maturit de son activit philosophique. L'tude du devenir de la pense de Nietzsche tant loin d'tre acheve, cet article exposera les thmes qui ont t constamment considrs comme les plus importants dans l'ensemble de l'histoire de la rception de ses uvres, tout en voquant la gense de certains d'entre eux[25].

Le concept de Volont de puissance est, pour de nombreux commentateurs (Heidegger[26], M. Haar[27] par exemple), l'un des concepts centraux de la pense de Nietzsche, dans la mesure o il est pour lui un instrument de description du monde, d'interprtation de phnomnes humains comme la morale et l'art (interprtation connue sous le nom de gnalogie), et d'une rvaluation de l'existence visant un tat futur de l'humanit (le surhomme). C'est pourquoi il est souvent utilis pour exposer l'ensemble de sa philosophie.

Par la notion de Volont de puissance, Nietzsche entend proposer une interprtation de la ralit dans son ensemble[28].

Volont de puissance est la traduction devenue usuelle de l'expression allemande Wille zur Macht. Cette expression forge par Nietzsche signifie littralement volont vers la puissance, ce qui met en vidence l'utilisation du datif allemand pour exprimer une tension interne dans l'ide mme de volont. En effet, il ne s'agit pas de vouloir la puissance comme si, dans une conception psychologisante, la puissance tait un objet pos l'extrieur de la volont[29]. Nietzsche carte ce sens traditionnel de la notion de volont[30], et lui substitue l'ide qu'il y a quelque chose dans la volont qui affirme sa puissance[31]. Dans cette ide, la volont de puissance dsigne un impratif interne d'accroissement de puissance, une loi intime de la volont exprime par l'expression tre plus[32]: cet impratif pose alors une alternative pour la Volont de puissance, devenir plus ou dprir[32].

Cette conception de la volont et de la puissance conduit exclure le recours des notions comme l'unit et l'identit pour dcrire ce qui existe et en dterminer lessence: si tout ce qui est Volont de puissance doit devenir plus, il n'est en effet pas possible pour un tre de demeurer dans ses propres limites. La notion de Volont de puissance ne dsigne donc ni ne constitue lunit ou lidentit dune chose. Au contraire, pour toute ralit, tre volont de puissance, c'est ne jamais pouvoir tre identique soi et tre toujours port au-del de soi.

Ce devenir plus, cette manire de devoir toujours aller au-del de soi, n'est cependant pas arbitraire, mais se produit selon une orientation, que Nietzsche nomme structure, et qui est donc une structure de croissance qui dfinit et fait comprendre comment une ralit devient; c'est cette structure qui est sa ralit agissante, individuelle, qui est sa volont de puissance:

Le nom prcis pour cette ralit serait la volont de puissance ainsi dsign d'aprs sa structure interne et non partir de sa nature protiforme, insaisissable, fluide.

Par-del bien et mal, 36

Ce mouvement se conoit en outre pour Nietzsche comme une exigence d'assimilation, de victoires contre des rsistances: cette ide introduit l'ide de force. La volont de puissance est ainsi constitue de forces dont elle est la structure[33]. La Volont de puissance s'accrot ainsi par l'adversit des forces dont elle est constitue, ou dcrot en cherchant cependant toujours d'autres moyens de s'affirmer.

Cette ide de structure d'une Volont de puissance, qui en fait une ontologie de la relation[34], possde galement une dimension pathologique associe au sentiment de puissance que Nietzsche avait commenc thmatiser ds Aurore.

La vie [] tend la sensation d'un maximum de puissance; elle est essentiellement l'effort vers plus de puissance; sa ralit la plus profonde, la plus intime, c'est ce vouloir.

Cette dimension affective est prsente en tout vivant, mais Nietzsche ltend galement linorganique, conu comme une forme plus rudimentaire de Volont de puissance. Cette affectivit introduit dans lide de volont de puissance (organique ou inorganique) une dimension affective fondamentale (dsigne par le terme de pathos), qui ne relve pas de l'expression d'un jeu de forces structures, mais dune disposition inhrente toute Volont de puissance se dployer d'une certaine manire:

La volont de puissance ne peut se manifester qu'au contact de rsistances; elle recherche ce qui lui rsiste[35].

Ainsi se trouvent lies en une mme notion les ides d'tre plus (extriorisation ou manifestation de la volont de puissance), de structure (relations entre des forces) et d'affectivit[36].

Devenir plus, structure et pathos sont les principales qualits que Nietzsche attribue une Volont de puissance. Ces qualits permettent de dcrire ce qui est. La Volont de puissance dcrit donc de cette manire toute la ralit[37]. Elle n'est pourtant pas un principe; structure et tre plus de ce qui devient, elle n'en est pas en effet l'origine radicale. En tant que description du monde, elle reste cependant un concept mtaphysique, puisqu'elle qualifie l'tant en sa totalit (selon Heidegger et Mller-Lauter[38]), ce que Nietzsche formule ainsi:

Lessence la plus intime de ltre est la volont de puissance[39].

Tout tant est donc pour Nietzsche Volont de puissance, et il n'y a d'tre qu'en tant que Volont de puissance. Dans cette perspective, le monde est un ensemble de volonts de puissance, une multitude[40]. Cette description gnrale du devenir pose cependant une difficult juge fondamentale pour la comprhension de la volont de puissance[41]: la volont de puissance est-elle le devenir ou son essence? La difficult souleve par cette question est que, dans la mesure o Nietzsche parat dcrire une structure interne, la volont de puissance semble devoir tre comprise de manire essentialiste; or, un tel essentialisme reconduirait la division entre un monde phnomnal et un arrire-monde laquelle Nietzsche s'oppose explicitement[41].

Mais une telle comprhension exclut toute recherche d'un inconditionn derrire le monde, et de cause derrire les tres (fondement, substance): car c'est en tant que nous interprtons que nous concevons le monde comme Volont de puissance. L'nonc sur l'essence doit tre rapport une forme de perspectivisme pour viter de faire de la Volont de puissance une substance ou un tre. Ceci suppose que d'autres interprtations sont possibles. Mais, tout en refusant un dogmatisme de l'tre, Nietzsche refuse galement le relativisme qui pourrait dcouler de sa thse du perspectivisme de la Volont de puissance: celle-ci est en effet galement un critre de la valeur, de la hirarchie mme des valeurs[42]

voir aussi: Vocabulaire nietzschen

Pour Nietzsche, la volont de puissance possde donc un double aspect: elle est un pathos fondamental et une structure.

Aussi une volont de puissance peut-elle s'analyser comme une relation interne d'un conflit, comme structure intime d'un devenir, et non seulement comme le dploiement d'une puissance: Le nom prcis pour cette ralit serait la volont de puissance ainsi dsign d'aprs sa structure interne et non partir de sa nature protiforme, insaisissable, fluide.[43] La volont de puissance est ainsi la relation interne qui structure un jeu de forces (une force ne pouvant tre conue en dehors d'une relation)[44]. De ce fait, elle n'est ni un tre, ni un devenir, mais ce que Nietzsche nomme un pathos fondamental, pathos qui n'est jamais fixe (ce n'est pas une essence), et qui par ce caractre fluide peut tre dfini par une direction de la puissance, soit dans le sens de la croissance soit dans le sens de la dcroissance. Ce pathos, dans le monde organique, s'exprime par une hirarchie d'instincts, de pulsions et d'affects, qui forment une perspective interprtative d'o se dploie la puissance et qui se traduit par exemple par des penses et des jugements de valeur correspondants.

Pense par Nietzsche comme la qualit fondamentale d'un devenir, la Volont de puissance permet d'en saisir la structure (ou type), et, partant, d'en dcrire la perspective. En ce sens, la Volont de puissance n'est pas un concept mtaphysique mais un instrument interprtatif (selon Jean Granier, contre l'interprtation de Heidegger[45]). Ds lors, pour Nietzsche, il s'agit de dterminer ce qui est interprt, qui interprte et comment.

Nietzsche prend pour point de dpart de son interprtation le monde qu'il considre comme nous tant donn et le mieux connu, savoir le corps[46]. Il prend ainsi, jusqu' un certain point, le contre-pied de Descartes, pour qui notre esprit (notre ralit pensante) nous est le mieux connu. Toutefois, l'ide de Nietzsche n'est pas totalement oppose la pense cartsienne, puisque selon lui nous ne connaissons rien d'autre que le monde de nos sentiments et de nos reprsentations, ce qui peut se comparer l'intuition de notre subjectivit chez Descartes[47]. Ainsi le corps n'est-il pas pour Nietzsche en premier lieu le corps objet de la connaissance scientifique, mais le corps vcu: notre conception de l'tre est une abstraction de notre rythme physiologique.

Toute connaissance, comme Kant l'avait dj tabli avant Nietzsche, doit prendre pour point de dpart la sensibilit. Mais, au contraire de Kant, Nietzsche tient, comme Arthur Schopenhauer, que les formes de notre apprhension de l'existence relvent en premier lieu de notre organisation physiologique (et de ses fonctions: nutrition, reproduction), tandis que les fonctions juges traditionnellement plus leves (la pense) n'en sont que des formes drives[48].

Aussi, pour Nietzsche, nous ne pouvons rien connatre autrement que par analogie avec ce qui nous est donn, i.e. que toute connaissance est une reconnaissance, une classification, qui retrouve dans les choses ce que nous y avons mis, et qui reflte notre vie la plus intime (nos pulsions, la manire dont nous sommes affects par les choses et comment, de l, nous les jugeons). Le monde dans son ensemble, lorsque nous tentons une synthse de nos connaissances pour le caractriser, n'est jamais que le monde de notre perspective, qui est une perspective vivante, affective. C'est pourquoi Nietzsche peut dire du monde qu'il est Volont de puissance, ds lors qu'il a justifi que l'homme, en tant qu'organisme, est Volont de puissance. Pour Nietzsche, nous ne pouvons faire autrement que de projeter cette conception de l'tre qui nous appartient du fait que nous vivons, et cela entrane galement pour consquence que la connaissance est interprtation[49], puisqu'une connaissance objective signifierait concevoir une connaissance sans un sujet vivant. En consquence, l'tre n'est pas d'abord l'objet d'une qute de vrit, l'tre est, pour l'homme, de la manire la plus intime et immdiate, vie ou existence.

partir de ce perspectivisme, Nietzsche estime que toute science (en tant que schmatisation quantitative) est drive ncessairement de notre rapport qualitatif au monde, elle en est une simplification, et rpond des besoins vitaux:

[] nous nous rendons compte de temps en temps, non sans en rire, que c'est prcisment la meilleure des sciences qui prtend nous retenir le mieux dans ce monde simplifi, artificiel de part en part, dans ce monde habilement imagin et falsifi, que nolens volens cette science aime l'erreur, parce qu'elle aussi, la vivante, aime la vie[50]!

Dans un premier temps, l'poque des Considrations inactuelles, Nietzsche avait dduit de ce point de dpart que nous ne pouvons comprendre la matire autrement que comme doue de qualits spirituelles, essentiellement la mmoire et la sensibilit, ce qui signifie que nous anthropomorphisons spontanment la nature. Il avait ainsi tent de dpasser d'un seul coup le matrialisme et le spiritualisme qui opposent tous deux la matire et la conscience d'une manire qui demeure inexplique. Or, Nietzsche supprimait ici le problme, en posant "l'esprit" comme matire. Avec le dveloppement de la notion de Volont de puissance, Nietzsche ne rompt pas avec cette premire thse de sa jeunesse, puisque les qualits attribues cette puissance sont gnralisables l'ensemble de ce qui existe; de ce fait, Nietzsche suppose que l'inorganique pourrait possder, comme toute vie, sensibilit et conscience, du moins dans un tat plus primitif. Cette thse peut faire penser la conception antique (aristotlicienne et stocienne) de la nature, qui fait natre un tre plus complexe d'un tat antrieur (par exemple, l'me-psych nat de la physis en en conservant les qualits)[51].

Cette mthode interprtative implique une rflexion de fond propos des concepts traditionnels de ralit et d'apparence[52]. En effet, puisque Nietzsche s'en tient un strict sensualisme (qui ncessite toutefois une interprtation), la ralit devient l'apparence, l'apparence est la ralit: Je ne pose donc pas "l'apparence" en opposition la "ralit", au contraire, je considre que l'apparence, c'est la ralit.

Mais de ce fait, les concepts mtaphysiques de ralit et d'apparence, et leur opposition, se trouvent abolis:

Nous avons aboli le monde vrai: quel monde restait-il? Peut-tre celui de l'apparence? Mais non! En mme temps que le monde vrai, nous avons aussi aboli le monde des apparences[53]!

En quoi consiste alors la ralit? Pour Nietzsche:

La "ralit" rside dans le retour constant de choses gales, connues, apparentes, dans leur caractre logicisable, dans la croyance qu'ici nous calculons et pouvons supputer.

Autrement dit, la ralit qui nous est donne est dj un rsultat qui n'apparat que par une perspective, structure de la volont de puissance que nous sommes. La pense de Nietzsche est donc une pense de la ralit comme interprtation, reposant sur une thse sensualiste, tout ceci supposant que toute interprtation n'existe qu'en tant que perspective. partir de cette thse perspectiviste, la question qui se pose Nietzsche (comme elle s'tait pose Protagoras, cf. le dialogue de Platon) est de savoir si toutes les perspectives (ou interprtations) se valent. La gnalogie vient rpondre cette question.

Si la Volont de puissance est applique par Nietzsche l'ensemble de la ralit, elle n'est pas utilise de manire univoque. Mller-Lauter, qui a tudi l'ensemble des textes qui se rapportent cette notion, a propos de regrouper l'ensemble de ces usages d'aprs l'article qui prcde l'expression (une, la, les). On peut distinguer, en suivant ce commentateur, un usage gnral et un usage particulier.

Dans un usage gnral, la Volont de puissance est une expression qui dsigne la qualit gnrale de tout devenir. Elle dcrit une manire d'tre qui se rencontre en tout tant.

Dans un usage particulier, une volont de puissance, c'est tel devenir, un tre (tel homme par exemple).

La Volont de puissance est un instrument d'interprtation de ce qui est, mais elle doit permettre galement de dterminer une chelle de valeurs. Elle est donc aussi le point de dpart du projet de Nietzsche de rvaluer les valeurs traditionnelles de la mtaphysique par l'adoption d'une perspective nouvelle sur les valeurs humaines produites jusqu'ici. Ceci doit, d'une part, entraner l'abolition des valeurs idalistes platonico-chrtiennes, et, d'autre part, entraner un mouvement antagoniste au dveloppement de l'histoire sous l'influence de Platon, mouvement qui conduirait alors une rvaluation de la vie[54].

L'aspect polmique de la Volont de puissance peut en particulier tre spcifie par l'ide de naturalisation de l'homme et des valeurs morales, c'est--dire par l'interprtation du vivant homme comme volont de puissance porteuse de certaines valeurs opposes aux anciennes valeurs qui supposent que l'homme possde une dimension mtaphysique.

Par la volont de puissance, Nietzsche s'oppose la tradition philosophique depuis Platon, tradition dans laquelle on trouve deux manires de saisir l'essence du vivant: le Conatus, chez Spinoza (le fait de persvrer dans l'tre) et le vouloir-vivre chez Schopenhauer (Nietzsche fut conquis par la philosophie de Schopenhauer avant de la critiquer). Mais chez Nietzsche, vivre n'est en aucune faon une conservation (Les physiologistes devraient rflchir avant de poser que, chez tout tre organique, linstinct de conservation constitue linstinct cardinal. Un tre vivant veut avant tout dployer sa force. La vie mme est volont de puissance, et linstinct de conservation nen est quune consquence indirecte et des plus frquentes (Nietzsche, Par del bien et mal, 13)), au contraire, pour lui, se conserver c'est s'affaiblir dans le nihilisme, seul le dpassement de soi (Selbst-berwindung) de la puissance par la volont et de la volont par la puissance est essentiel la vie et donne son sens la volont de puissance.

Nietzsche s'oppose galement, par cette notion de Volont de puissance, aux philosophies faisant du bonheur le Bien Suprme, et de sa recherche le but de toute vie, et notamment aux philosophies eudmonistes antiques comme l'picurisme - qui ne parvenaient pas expliquer la persistance du mal - en tte. Cette position se retrouve notamment dans cette dclaration:

il n'est pas vrai que l'homme recherche le plaisir et fuit la douleur: on comprend quel prjug illustre je romps ici (). Le plaisir et la douleur sont des consquences, des phnomnes concomitants; ce que veut l'homme, ce que veut la moindre parcelle d'un organisme vivant, c'est un accroissement de puissance. Dans l'effort qu'il fait pour le raliser, le plaisir et la douleur se succdent; cause de cette volont, il cherche la rsistance, il a besoin de quelque chose qui s'oppose lui[55]

Finalement, Nietzsche se propose de modifier par la Volont de puissance les fondements de toutes les philosophies passes, dont le caractre dogmatique est contraire son perspectivisme, et de renouveler la question des valeurs que nous attribuons certaines notions (comme la vrit, le bien) et notre existence, en posant la question de savoir ce qui fait la valeur propre d'une perspective: quelle est par exemple la valeur de la volont de vrit[56]?

La question qui dcoule pour Nietzsche de cette mise en question est de savoir si l'on peut tablir, la suite de cette critique, une nouvelle hirarchie des interprtations et sur quelles bases. Nietzsche n'est ainsi pas tant un prophte ou un visionnaire, dont une notion comme la Volont de puissance serait le message, mais il se comprend lui-mme comme le prcurseur de philosophes plus libres, tant l'gard des valeurs morales que des valeurs mtaphysiques.

Ma volont survient toujours en libratrice et messagre de joie. Vouloir affranchit: telle est la vraie doctrine de la volont et de la libert []. Volont, c'est ainsi que s'appellent le librateur et le messager de joie [] que le vouloir devienne non-vouloir, pourtant mes frres vous connaissez cette fable de folie! Je vous ai conduits loin de ces chansons lorsque je vous ai enseign: la volont est cratrice[57].

Au-del de ses aspects critiques, la Volont de puissance, en tant qu'interprtation de la ralit, a donc des aspects positifs et crateurs, qui se traduiront dans la pense de l'ternel retour et dans l'aspiration un tat futur de l'homme, le Surhomme[58].

La notion de Volont de puissance, qui est la qualit gnrale de tout devenir, doit permettre une interprtation de toutes les ralits en tant que telles. Elle synthtise un ensemble de rgles mthodologiques[59] qui sont le rsultat de rflexions qui s'tendent des annes 1860 la fin de 1888. Mais cette notion ne prtend pas la systmatisation (Nietzsche a d'ailleurs abandonn pour cette raison l'ide d'un expos de sa philosophie de la Volont de puissance; cf. Volont de puissance), car elle a beaucoup volu, mais on peut nanmoins dgager des lignes directrices permettant d'exposer la pense de Nietzsche dans son ensemble.

Un des aspects les plus connus est son application au problme de l'origine de la morale, sous le nom de gnalogie. Cette application de la mthode la morale permet de comprendre comment Nietzsche analyse les hirarchies pulsionnelles en jeu dans toute perspective morale, ce qui est proprement la mthode gnalogique[60]. Les questions qui se posent sont alors du type: quel type d'hommes a besoin de telles valuations morales? quelle morale tel philosophe ou mtaphysicien veut-il en venir, et quel besoin cela rpond-il?

Je me suis rendu compte peu peu de ce que fut jusqu' prsent toute grande philosophie: la confession de son auteur, une sorte de mmoires involontaires et insensibles; et je me suis aperu aussi que les intentions morales ou immorales formaient, dans toute philosophie, le vritable germe vital d'o chaque fois la plante entire est close. On ferait bien en effet (et ce serait mme raisonnable) de se demander, pour l'lucidation de ce problme: comment se sont formes les affirmations mtaphysiques les plus lointaines d'un philosophe? on ferait bien, dis-je, de se demander quelle morale veut-on en venir[61]?

Ces analyses des structures pulsionnelles et affectives forment ainsi un projet de reformulation, la lumire de la Volont de puissance, de la psychologie traditionnelle[62] qui tait fonde sur le statut privilgi accord la conscience.

En rfutant le primat de la conscience[63], Nietzsche est amen dvelopper une psychologie des profondeurs (dont tout le premier chapitre de Par-del bien et mal est un exemple) qui met au premier plan la lutte ou l'association des instincts, des pulsions et des affects, la conscience n'tant qu'une perception tardive des effets de ces jeux de forces infra conscients. Ce que Nietzsche nomme gnalogie sera alors la recherche rgressive partant d'une interprtation (par exemple, l'interprtation morale du monde) pour remonter sa source de production, i.e. au pathos fondamental qui la rend ncessaire.

Les jugements mtaphysiques, moraux, esthtiques, deviennent ainsi des symptmes de besoins, d'instincts, d'affects le plus souvent refouls par la conscience morale, pour lesquels la morale est un masque, une dformation de l'apprciation de soi et de l'existence. In fine, cela revient faire reposer l'analyse sur la dtermination de la Volont de puissance d'un type. ce titre, l'individu n'est pas examin par Nietzsche pour lui-mme, mais en tant qu'expression d'un systme hirarchis de valeurs.

Cette mthode amne donc poser des questions du genre: quelle structure pulsionnelle, incarne par tel ou tel homme, conduit tel type de jugements? quel besoin cela rpond-il, quelle Volont de puissance? Veut-on, par la morale, discipliner des instincts, et dans ce cas, dans quel but? Ou veut-on les anantir, et dans ce cas, est-ce parce qu'ils sont jugs nfastes, dangereux, est-ce parce qu'ils sont, en tant que phnomnes naturels, l'objet de haine et de ressentiment? Le premier cas peut tre l'expression d'un besoin de croissance, le second d'une logique d'auto-destruction.

Dans Par-del bien et mal, Nietzsche expose cette gnalogie, conception approfondie et renouvele par la thse de la Volont de puissance (expos au 36) de la philosophie historique, et il considre la psychologie comme reine des sciences, tout en soulignant ce qui distingue sa conception de la psychologie traditionnelle:

Toute la psychologie s'est arrte jusqu' prsent des prjugs et des craintes morales: elle n'a pas os s'aventurer dans les profondeurs. Oser considrer la psychologie comme morphologie et comme doctrine de l'volution dans la volont de puissance, ainsi que je la considre personne n'y a encore song, mme de loin: autant, bien entendu, qu'il est permis de voir dans ce qui a t crit jusqu' prsent un symptme de ce qui a t pass sous silence. La puissance des prjugs moraux a pntr profondment dans le monde le plus intellectuel, le plus froid en apparence, le plus dpourvu d'hypothses et, comme il va de soi, cette influence a eu les effets les plus nuisibles, car elle l'a entrav et dnatur. Une psycho-physiologie relle est force de lutter contre les rsistances inconscientes dans le cur du savant, elle a le cur contre elle. [] Et le psychologue qui fait de tels sacrifices ce n'est pas le sacrifizio del intelletto, au contraire! aura, tout au moins, le droit de demander que la psychologie soit de nouveau proclame reine des sciences, les autres sciences n'existant qu' cause d'elle, pour la servir et la prparer. Mais, ds lors, la psychologie est redevenue la voie qui mne aux problmes fondamentaux[64].

Si cette nouvelle psychologie repose, en 1886, sur l'hypothse de la Volont de puissance, l'ide du conflit des instincts n'est pas ne de celle-ci. Ds 1880, des fragments vont dans ce sens, et la Volont de puissance en tant qu'ide apparat bien avant d'tre nomme. L'expression Volont de puissance permet de synthtiser cet ensemble.

Comme cela a t signal, la Volont de puissance est une notion qui n'est pas d'emble prsente dans l'uvre de Nietzsche. Pour rendre compte de l'volution de la pense de Nietzsche, il faut partir des hypothses qu'il pose et des notions qu'il utilise avant la priode dite de maturit. Il en va de mme pour la psychologie, puisque le dveloppement de cette dernire apparat significatif surtout partir de Humain, trop humain, c'est--dire en 1878, quand il rompt de manire consciente avec son milieu culturel[65]. Influenc par Paul Re, Nietzsche lit alors avec intrt les moralistes franais (La Rochefoucauld, Chamfort, etc.); il lit galement des ouvrages contemporains de psychologie, quoi il faut ajouter des tudes de sociologie, d'anthropologie, et des travaux sur la thorie de la connaissance, tel que celui de Lange (Histoire du matrialisme), o l'on trouve une discussion du statut scientifique de la psychologie. La pense de Nietzsche, en ce qui concerne la psychologie, se dveloppe donc d'une part d'aprs l'observation des hommes (les maximes de La Rochefoucauld par exemple, ou ses observations personnelles dont il souligne le caractre particulier, relatif, et souvent provisoire), et dialogue d'autre part avec des rflexions pistmologiques contemporaines.

L'observation psychologique est ainsi particulirement prsente dans Humain, trop humain et Aurore; Nietzsche souhaite alors jeter les bases d'une philosophie historique, en procdant un genre d'analyse chimique de nos reprsentations et sentiments moraux, prfigurant ce qui deviendra la gnalogie. Il analyse les comportements humains, sous l'influence de La Rochefoucauld ou de Voltaire ( qui Humain, trop humain est ddi) et peut-tre aussi de Hobbes, et ramne souvent les mobiles de l'action et de la pense humaine la vanit et au sentiment de puissance. Si certaines de ses peintures sont de cette manire des tableaux de moraliste de l'existence humaine, certains thmes, comme ce sentiment de puissance, mais aussi les diffrentes sortes de morales, sont des premires formulations des thories majeures qu'il dveloppera plus tard. Cette tape de son uvre peut tre considre comme une srie d'essais plus ou moins aboutis pour dcrire l'homme, ses motivations et la nature de ses relations sociales (aphorismes sur l'amiti, sur l'tat, les femmes, etc.).

C'est partir de 1886 que Nietzsche exposera de manire plus ordonne le rsultat de ses recherches, en tant que mthode gnalogique, en particulier dans Par-del bien et mal, et sous forme de dissertations dans la Gnalogie de la morale. Des lments de cette gnalogie sont toutefois dj prsents dans Humain, trop humain (par exemple, les diffrentes origines de la morale, ou le caractre de palliatif, et non de remde vritable, de la religion) et dans Aurore (la moralit des murs comme source de la civilisation, ou encore le sentiment de puissance qui guide l'homme jusque dans la morale).

Ces rsultats peuvent tre rsums grce aux expositions schmatiques que Nietzsche lui-mme en a faites. Ainsi, la question sur l'origine de la morale, il rpond que toutes les valeurs morales se ramnent deux systmes d'origine diffrente: la morale des faibles et la morale des forts[66]. Le terme origine ne dsigne pas ici l'apparition historique de ces systmes, mais le type de cration dont ils sont le rsultat, si bien que l'origine, au sens de Nietzsche, est ce partir de quoi l'histoire se dtermine, et non un vnement quelconque de l'histoire universelle.

Pour parvenir ce rsultat, Nietzsche a procd une gnalogie comportant plusieurs moments, exposs dans la premire dissertation de la Gnalogie de la morale: il a recherch dans le langage les premires expressions de ce qui a t jug bon; puis, suivant l'volution du sens des mots bon et mauvais, il a montr le processus d'intriorisation de ces valeurs dont la signification tait tout d'abord principalement matrielle; enfin, remontant d'une valuation morale donne ses conditions d'expression, il a distingu deux manires fondamentales de crer des valeurs morales.

Le point de dpart de la mthode gnalogique est linguistique: se posant la question de l'origine de la morale, Nietzsche demande: o trouve-t-on les premires notions de bon et mauvais, et que signifient-elles? cartant l'interprtation utilitariste, Nietzsche met en avant que ce sont les aristocrates de toutes socits qui se sont dsigns en premier lieu eux-mmes comme bons, et que ce terme, d'une manire simple et spontane, dsigne la richesse, la beaut, les plaisirs de l'activit physique, la sant, en un mot, l'excellence. Le mot bon dsigne ainsi les hommes de la caste la plus leve, celle des guerriers. De ce fait, il ne dsigne pas ce que nous entendons par l aujourd'hui, en particulier, un bon n'est pas un homme altruiste, charitable, accessible la piti.

L'analyse historique et linguistique dbouche ainsi sur une recherche d'ordre sociologique: les premires valuations morales dpendent et sont l'expression d'un rang. Nanmoins, Nietzsche ne reprend pas son compte les thories contemporaines, telles que celle de l'influence du milieu de Taine, car s'il faut tenir compte des dterminations sociales, la socit ne peut servir de principe explicatif intgral. Il renomme d'ailleurs cette science d'aprs son interprtation gnalogique (thorie des formes de domination) qu'il juge premire relativement la sociologie et la psychologie de son temps.

La question est ainsi pour Nietzsche la suivante: dans quelle mesure les castes d'une socit permettent-elles le dveloppement d'une espce particulire de jugements moraux? Nietzsche distingue typologiquement plusieurs types de jugements moraux en fonction des situations sociales possibles (guerriers, prtres, esclaves, etc.):

Si la transformation du concept politique de la prminence en un concept psychologique est la rgle, ce n'est point par une exception cette rgle (quoique toute rgle donne lieu des exceptions) que la caste la plus haute forme en mme temps la caste sacerdotale et que par consquent elle prfre, pour sa dsignation gnrale, un titre qui rappelle ses fonctions spciales. C'est l que par exemple le contraste entre pur et impur sert pour la premire fois la distinction des castes; et l encore se dveloppe plus tard une diffrence entre bon et mauvais dans un sens qui n'est plus limit la caste[67].

La situation sociale permet un sentiment de puissance de se distinguer par des formes qui lui sont propres, et qui, primitivement, possdent des expressions spontanes et entires peu intriorises. De cet examen des castes, Nietzsche dgage alors une premire grande opposition:

On devine avec combien de facilit la faon d'apprcier propre au prtre se dtachera de celle de l'aristocratie guerrire, pour se dvelopper en une apprciation tout fait contraire; le terrain sera surtout favorable au conflit lorsque la caste des prtres et celle des guerriers se jalouseront mutuellement et n'arriveront plus s'entendre sur le rang. Les jugements de valeurs de l'aristocratie guerrire sont fonds sur une puissante constitution corporelle, une sant florissante, sans oublier ce qui est ncessaire l'entretien de cette vigueur dbordante: la guerre, l'aventure, la chasse, la danse, les jeux et exercices physiques et en gnral tout ce qui implique une activit robuste, libre et joyeuse. La faon d'apprcier de la haute classe sacerdotale repose sur d'autres conditions premires: tant pis pour elle quand il s'agit de guerre[68].

Nietzsche ramne par la suite toute morale deux types fondamentaux qui correspondent originellement l'opposition dominant/domin. Il faut carter l'ide que les dominants, ceux qui crent en premier lieu les valeurs, seraient uniquement des guerriers: la gense des valeurs dgage par Nietzsche nonce clairement un conflit entre le monde de l'activit physique et celui de l'activit intellectuelle (c'est--dire de la volont de puissance intriorise). Aussi Nietzsche voit-il d'abord une dispute sur la question du rang des valeurs entre les guerriers et les prtres.

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Friedrich Nietzsche Wikipdia

"To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities - I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not - that one endures." (The Will to Power, p 481)

"You want, if possible - and there is no more insane "if possible" - to abolish suffering. And we? It really seems that we would rather have it higher and worse than ever. Well-being as you understand it - that is no goal, that seems to us an end, a state that soon makes man ridiculous and contemptible - that makes his destruction desirable. The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far?" (Beyond Good and Evil, p 225 )

"I do not point to the evil and pain of existence with the finger of reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one day become more evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been." Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

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Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Kaufmann (Translator) 4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating 61,685 ratings published 1883 626 editions

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Friedrich Nietzsche (Author of Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German atheist philosopher whose work set a foundation for the existentialist movement of the 1900s.[1] Nietzsche went mad and suffered a mental breakdown, from which he never recovered.

Nietzsche was critical of religion in general, though especially Christianity, which he described as the "religion of pity."[2] Nietzsche is perhaps most famous for his declaration that God is dead, which suggests that since Christian morality views worldly pleasures as immoral, to accept Christianity is to deny life - therefore, God (a personification of Christian principles) is figuratively dead. Furthermore, he postulated that the Christian Heaven, a metaphysical "true world" beyond the reach of the human senses, devalued the physical world that we live in. In this sense, he accused Christianity of nihilism. He also suggested that Western culture seemed no longer rooted in Christian dogmatism and a faith-based worldview. Without God, the idea of absolutes are difficult to come by, and Nietzsche thus suggested ways for people to cope with this loss of "Good" and "Evil".

Nietzsche suffered a mental collapse in 1889, and spent the last ten years of his life unable to care for himself. During this time, his sister Elizabeth Frster-Nietzsche took over his affairs, and worked to falsify and re-edit his writings in order to support her virulent Antisemitism (a view which Nietzsche arguably abhorred, and often mocked, during his lifetime). It was her distorted version of culled and misquoted statements which later provided an intellectual fig leaf for the Nazis and Italian Fascists.

The bermensch (overhuman, superhuman) was a literary device used in his magnum opus, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". The Overman was to be a new kind of being which would overcome resentment and affirm the Eternal Recurrence of the same.

The statement "God is dead" first appeared in Nietzsche's "The Gay Science", in Aphorism 108, titled "New Struggles". This aphorism introduces Nietzsche's famous Madman, who runs out into the street shouting, "God is dead!" Yet, to his dismay, the Madman sees "he has come too soon," for people have not realized this cultural revelation for themselves and are blind to it. They consider the Madman's seemingly theological claim as absurd for they misunderstand him; it is no argument about the existence of God, but a claim of how secular society has become. Nietzsche was no friend to Christian beliefs, and no doubt considered the Christian God to be a mere myth. This passage shows his hope for a philosophy of the future, one he imagined would be emptied of coarse objective rationalizing, which he characterized as God and associated with Christianity. Nietzsche, in other words, felt his message of subjective truth came too soon and hoped, as the Madman, that he would be understood someday.

Nietzsche's father Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, was a Lutheran pastor.

In his first Papal Encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" (God is Charity/Love) Pope Benedict XVI quotes from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, taking very seriously Nietzsche's claim that the Church has poisoned eros (love) with dogma, and responding to it.

After writing his final complete work in 1883, The Antichrist, Curse on Christianity[3], Nietzsche would go insane in 1889, exactly 50 years before the start of World War II[4], during which he would prophetically predict a coming Hitlerian society and Nazi Germany. As H.L. Mencken puts it, "Save for his raucous, rhapsodical autobiography, 'Ecce Homo,' 'The Antichrist' is the last thing that Nietzsche ever wrote, and so it may be accepted as a statement of some of his most salient ideas in their final form."[5]

Nietzsche, early in January 1889, saw a coachman flogging a horse, and rushed towards it. Throwing his arms around the horse, Nietzsche collapsed in unconsciousness, and was carried home. In a fit of insanity, he mailed several letters before dying on August 25, 1900, from pneumonia.[6] These letters included the following:

-Friedrich Nietzsche to Gast, January 4, 1889[7]

-Friedrich Nietzsche to Jacob Burkhardt, January 6, 1889[8]

Thus, for all his criticism of God, Christianity, and the supernatural, Nietzsche would end his life in a fit of madness prophesying the coming of World War II in warning to the Jewish people, accurately predicting German doctor Joseph Mengele, antisemitism, and the threat of Germany to the free world.

Examples in the Bible of God punishing prominent figures for their wickedness and using them as prophets during or immediately after their insanity include:

Other somewhat similar cases include:

Currently, there is an ongoing debate on whether Friedrich Nietzsche's insanity was caused purely through disease or whether his atheistic/nihilistic philosophical outlook on life was the cause.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] An article published on the Hong Kong Baptist University declares:

Sigmund Feud and Carl Jung related that Nietzsche had contracted syphilis, which he died from, during a visit to a homosexual brothel in Genoa, Italy.[17][18]

The Russian-born psychoanalyst and writer Lou Andreas-Salom, who had a brief and tempestuous affair with Nietzsche, believed that Nietzsche's philosophy can be viewed as a reflection of his psychology and that his madness was the result of his philosophizing.[19] In addition, the French historian Ren Girard asserted that Nietzsche's philosophy led to his insanity.[20]

Eternal Reoccurrence is a main idea in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Basically, it is the idea that everything you do, everything you say, every pain, every joy, every thought, et cetera, will be replayed ad infinitum.

'-it follows that, in the great dice game of existence, it must pass through a calculable number of combinations. In infinite time, every possible combination would at some time or another be realized; more: it would be realized an infinite number of times. And since between every combination and its next recurrence all other possible combinations would have to take place, and each of these combinations conditions the entire sequence of combinations in the same series, a circular movement of absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated: the world as a circular movement that has already repeated itself infinitely often and plays its game ad infinitum.' -The Will to Power [21]

Thus, Nietzsche's view of time is circular, with time having no beginning, and no end. The whole Universe is in an eternal flux between creation and destruction, playing out over and over again, until eventually, the same patterns of both matter and energy will be played out once more, and you will live your life as you had before. And thus, there is ultimately no free will, for you are simply doing what you have done in the past and what you have done in the future.

'The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?' -The Gay Science [22]

To Nietzsche, this was a horrifying thought to consider. If one were to consider and realize this as a possibility, one would have two choices: to either fall into despair that you will live again forever and ever, or to embrace it with joy. To Nietzsche, the latter is one of the things that the Overman would have to do, to have joy in such a prospect, and that the Overman should live as he would want to live over and over again throughout eternity.

"To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality; new means against the fact of pain (pain conceived as a tool, as the father of pleasure; there is no cumulative consciousness of displeasure); the enjoyment of all kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept of necessity; abolition of the 'will'; abolition of 'knowledge-in-itself.'" -The Will to Power [23]

Friedrich Nietzsche argued that rational egalitarianism denies creativity, and reason cannot create values and morality, attempt to do so would only lead to nihilism. Therefore morality has been imposed.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.", "With morality, the individual can only ascribe value to himself as a function of the herd", "I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul ... and has its basis in the primary law of things", "all morality is partisan; just as any legal system will favor certain behavior against others", "who else should we wish to serve, if not ourselves?" and "Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you."

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "I mistrust all systemizers and avoid them; the will to systematize is a lack of integrity", "there is no pre-established harmony between the furtherance of truth and the well-being of mankind", "the free-spirit is brought into disrepute chiefly by scholars who miss their thoroughness and ant-like industry in his art of regarding things", "there are many things I do not wish to know, wisdom sets a limit on knowledge too", "the fact that science as we practice it today is possible proves that the elementary instinct which protect life have ceased to function", "we have arranged for ourselves a world in which we are able to live with postulation of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes, and effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of faith, nobody could manage to live", "the irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition for it", "[too much knowledge causes us to] choke on our own reason", "creed of nihilism which I see everywhere is the result of too much learning" and "Any truth which threatens life is no truth at all, it is an error".

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "As a political subject, it is an illusion to ask myself what I require from the state. In reality, it is a question of what the state requires from me", "culture and the state are antagonistic", "clearly, the individual will is forfeit to the demands of government - a kind of political Darwinism. The herd triumphs again, this time under the banner of the state", "socialism is the fantastic younger brother of an almost decrepit despotism, which it wants to succeeded", "the doctrine of free will is an invention of the ruling classes" and "madness is something rare in individuals; but in groups, parties, ages, it is the rule".

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "Women are essentially unpeaceful" and "Man is for woman a means; the purpose is always a child. But what is woman for man?"

Nietszche also wrote "Stupidity in a woman is unfeminine." [1]

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "Philosophy is the dressing-up in rational argument of moral beliefs, intuitions and desires".

Friedrich Nietzsche was born to a long line of Protestant Lutheran ministers. His grandfather, Friedrich August Ludwig Nietzsche, was in fact an established Protestant scholar whose writings argued the everlasting survival of Christianity. From an early age Friedrich Nietzsche maintained a dedication to Lutheranism and continued his passion for theology in university. In the year 1864, Nietzsche entered the University of Bonn as a theology and philology student with a particular interest in the translation and interpretation of Biblical texts. Nietzsche's views on religion are scattered amongst his earliest works in the 1860s well up until the time of his death in 1889. As such, his views concerning religion, morality, and human nature are not outlined definitively and are thus the subject of scholarly debate.

However, Nietzsche spoke out against Islam citing that it was a force subsisting wholly on the denial of the individual. He posed in his work "The Birth of Tragedy" that Islam (among other religions) utilizes the restriction of necessary human desires such as love as a means of securing their permanence as a force of control.

Thus Friedrich Nietzsche viewed Mohammed, Buddha, Homer etc, not as religious figures, but as creators of rigid moral frameworks, who lost their authority as Europe severed ties with its diverse religious tradition.

Nietzsche wrote his books from one to three decades before Sigmund Freud wrote his, and published his first book the same year that Mietzsche died (1900). Although Sigmund Freud said that he had never read Nietzsche's works, this statement is contradicted by Freud paraphrasing and quoting Nietzsche in private conversations and in his own personal journals. The similarities are: the concept of the unconscious mind, the idea that the individual becomes more comfortable and effective when he pushes unacceptable thoughts and memories into his unconscious mind, the idea that repressed emotions and instincts are expressed in disguise, dreams are symbolic and a cathartic process which has health benefits,the suggestion that hostile, unconscious feelings are projected on others, who are then seen as the perpetrators, is the basis of paranoid thinking, the acknowledgment of a repetition compulsion (for Nietzsche, eternal reoccurrence) [24][25]

In addition to writing books, Nietzsche wrote some music, most of them short pieces.

See original here:
Friedrich Nietzsche - Conservapedia

This interesting paper appeared in British Journal for the History of Philosophy22 (2014):322-342. The title is a play on my paper "Nietzsche's Metaethics: Against the Privilege Readings," European Journal of Philosophy 8 (2000): 277-297 (hereafter my "EJP paper"), and Huddleston's main target are my different accounts of Nietzsche's anti-realism about value. (My thinking aboutHuddleston's paperwas helped by a useful discussion with faculty and graduate students in philosophy at UC Riverside last February. I will cite to the second, 2015 edition of my Nietzsche on Morality [Routledge] as NOM, but by page number of the 2nd edition.)

Two preliminary terminological matters, one minor, the other less so. On the minor: Huddleston prefers the term "meta-axiology" rather than metaethics because N. is concerned broadly with the status of values, not just morality (Huddleston, 326-328, where he gives some other reasons). Nothing turns on this. Those discussing N's metaethics are discussing the same thing Huddleston is discussing, and are simply using the more common, contemporary term. I'll follow Huddleston's usage here.

A slightly less minor terminological matter: right at the start (322-323), Huddleston proposes a distinction between "values in the descriptive sense," meaning "the ideals and codes of conduct that people have...taken to be valuable" (322) and what he calls "genuine values," that is values that "are accurate to an evaluative fact-of-the-matter" (323) (which I take it means something like: corresponding to "objective" value in some sense of "objective"). There's another relevant concept missing here, namely, "values in the normative sense," that is judgments that endorse (or recommend) values in the descriptive sense. N. undoubtedly makes value judgments "in the normative sense." The meta-axiological question is whether those judgments exemplify what Huddleston calls "genuine values."

Huddleston's official view is that he is "doubtful that" Nietzsche has a "sophisticated meta-axiological view" (323) and that the "texts seriously underdetermine where he stands on these important issues" (324). Unfortunately, Huddlestonhere conflates (see esp. 323 and the scholarly papers citedin note 4) metaphysical and semantic questions that might be thought meta-ethical or meta-axiological (despite acknowledging at the end of the long footnote 6, p. 325, that he too is really concerned only with the metaphysical questions). I, of course, arguedin the EJP paper in 2000, in NOM in 2002,and every publicationsince, that the texts really do underdetermine ascription of any semantic theory of evaluative discourse to Nietzsche, a fact that should hardly be surprising given that prior to the 20th-century no one was really interested in that question. Some sophisticated commentators on the semantic issues, including Nadeem Hussain (who earlier on defended a fictionalist reading) have since come around to this view (see his contribution to Gemes & Richardson [eds.], The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche [2013]). On the metaphysical question, however, two points are worth emphasizing: (1) it is not clear there really are that many different views (in fact, in the secondary literature and thebroader intellectualreception of Nietzsche [from Weber to Carnap to MacIntyre]], anti-realist readings dominate), and (2) it is not at all clear the texts really underdetermine the question of Nietzsche's view of the metaphysics of value. (Everyone in the history of philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the present has defended views about the metaphysics of value, so this would not have been a foreign topic to N.)

Regarding (2):the primary weakness of Huddleston's paper is that he doesn't actually considermost of theanti-realist passages from Nietzsche (I provide a catalogue of many of them in "Moral Skepticism and Moral Disagreement in Nietzsche," in Oxford Studies in Metaethics 9 [2014], which I'll refer to hereafter as my OSM paper). His strategy, instead, is to criticize particular arguments (mostly mine)for ascribing anti-realism about value to Nietzsche,considering only a handful of anti-realist passages (331 ff.).

Huddleston's first target (327-228)is the argument from disagreement among philosophers developed in my OSM paper. The argument in brief: the best explanation for why moral philosophers do not agree on foundational moral questionsincludes the fact that there is nocognizable truth about fundamental moral questions.Huddleston notes that I treat as central a Nachlass passage (WP 428), though he is silent on the otherpassages in the published corpus I also point to.(He also notes, as I do, that the passage, WP 428,is about morality not values, but that's precisely why I treat it as suggesting an argument for moral anti-realism only.) He is also silent on how best to reconstruct the argument in the Nachlass passage, claiming instead that "there is strong evidence that Nietzsche definitively rejects a (similar, though not identical) argument from disagreement" in his published work (329). Huddleston writes:

Second, and more importantly, the context of this passage suggests that its subject is not the subject of WP 428, namely, whether it isa "swindle to talk of 'truth'" when it comes to morality. The topic of GS 345, by contrast, is about the failure of most thinkers to really consider the problem of the value of morality. Nietzsche gives several examples of the failure to engage with this problem. One is to draw inferences about whether a morality is or is not "binding" from the fact that there is "some consensus of the nations, at least of tame nations, concerning certain principles of morals" (which is taken as evidence that "these principles must be unconditionally binding also for you and me") or the converse inference, already quoted. But a more "refined" mistake is to commit the genetic fallacy, to fail to realize that, "Even if a morality has grown out of an error, the realization of this fact would not as much as touch the problem of its value" (GS 345). I take it, then, that whether or not a morality ought to be treated as binding is the same as the "problem of its value," not the problem of its truth. It's clearly compatible with my reconstruction of the WP 428 argument that anti-realism about moral value has no bearing on the question which moralities are valuable. Only on theunNietzscheanassumption that a true morality is necessarily valuable (N's whole corpus repeatedly raises the question of the value of truth, of course), or the question-begging assumption that a morality N. judges to be valuable is therefore true, would we be able to assimilate the concern of GS 345 to that of WP 428 and the skeptical argument from disagreement I defend in the OSM paper.

Huddleston briefly considers a different argument: namely, "N's frequent assimilation of value judgments to matters of taste" (329). He does not adduce any textual evidence that N. thinks judgments of taste can be objectively true or false, noting only that "it is far from obvious that someone as elitist and snobbish as N. would think that there are no standards of correctness in matters of taste" (329). One can agree it is not "obvious"--no one said it was, but the language about judgments of "taste" doesoccur within a rich web of anti-realist passages that invite the skeptical reading of "taste"--but Huddleston muddies the issue by asserting that the skeptical reading has to claim "that there is no genuine privilege that one person's taste can have over another's" (329). If "genuine privilege" is interpreted to mean an epistemic privilege of the kind involved in Huddleston's "genuine values," then, yes, the skeptical reading does deny that. But there are other kinds of privileges tastes can enjoy, such as being marks of nobility, being conducive to the flourishing of genius, and so on, that are compatible with the skeptical position. (I also discuss some of N's "elitist and snobbish" rhetoric and how to interpret it in NOM, 125-126.)

Finally, Huddleston considers (329-331)the argument in NOM (121 ff.) that N. offers a best-explanation argument for moral anti-realism (Huddleston is right that this is not an argument for anti-realism about all value, but I did not claim it was). Huddleston notes that "even stipulating that N. thinks one can explain all evaluative commitments by reference to wholly non-evaluative facts about the people with those commitments and their environments, it is contentious, on purely philosophical grounds, that the strong eliminativist conclusion [about moral values] should follow" (330). This is true but trivial: every philosophical claim is contentious, but I have offered arguments for that conclusion (cf. "Moral Facts and Best Explanations," Social Philosophy & Policy [2001], and reprinted in my Naturalizing Jurisprudence [OUP, 2007]), while Huddleston offers no arguments for the opposing view. The only substantive objection Huddleston makes to the best-explanation reading of Nietzsche's moral anti-realism is to note that N's explanations "are far from being couched in wholly non-evaluative, cooly scientific terms," involving he says "thick concepts such as nobility and baseness, concepts in which an evaluative dimension arguably is already built in" (330). Put aside that "nobility" is a matter of a cluster of descriptive psychological traits (e.g., self-reverence), none of the best explanation arguments I identify in Nietzsche require "nobility" to do explanatory work. I have also argued (NOM, 122-123) that possibly evaluative concepts like "high" and "low" function as explicitly evaluative terms for N., on a par with "good and evil," and so warranting anti-realist interpretation. Huddleston is silent on this.

In the second major part of his paper (331-334), Huddleston takes up a couple of apparently anti-realist passages about value and tries to offer different interpretations. These includes GS 301 (nature lacks "value in itself" value "has been given...as a present") and Z I ("On the Thousand and One Goals"). Huddleston aptly glosses these passages as suggestingthatin valuejudgments"[t]here is simply the projection of our attitudes onto axiologically neutral reality" (332).

Huddleston suggests that it is not clear that GS 301, in particular,isn't only about "values in the descriptive sense" rather than all values (including what Huddleston calls "genuine values") (332). That there is nothing in the passagethat indicates it islimited to "values in the descriptive sense" suggests to methat this is a somewhatdesperate shifting of the burden of proof rather than a serious argument.

More interestingly, Huddleston notes that a projectivist view like that suggested in GS 301 could be compatible with "the idea that the evaluative facts which ground genuine values are themselves not wholly mind-independent facts" (332). He here refers, appropriately, to Alex Silk's important paper on "Nietzschean Constructivism," in the special issue of Inquiry I edited in 2015 (vol. 58, 244-280). I hope to discuss Silk's paper in a future posting. But given that Huddleston repeatedly urges caution about ascribing perhaps anachronistic views to Nietzsche, it is ironic, and not very convincing, to be told that N. may believe in "genuine values" in Huddleston's sense because the texts might admit of the latest in high-tech metaethical readings from Michigan! (Even worse, Huddleston suggests [334], though doesn't really argue, that N's views might admit of interpretation along Razian lines!)

Huddleston devotes another section of his paper toReginster's account of "perspectival value" in Nietzsche. I found this to be one of the least compelling part of Reginster's book, and I don't have anything to add to Nadeem Hussain's criticisms of Reginster's views on this score (see Hussain,

"Metaethics and Nihilism in Reginster's The Affirmation of Life" Journal of Nietzsche Studies 43 (2012): 99-117).

At the very end of his paper, Huddleston, considering the possibility that Nietzsche is "skeptical of the very idea that anything is really valuable," writes:

The real significance ofHuddleston's conclusion, however, is what it betrays about the assumptionsmany readers of N. bring to the text: namely, that they bring to bear the bias that cognitive error is really important, and that evaluative judgments can't be taken seriously unless they correspond to genuine values. But both assumptions are utterly unNietzschean: falsity is never N's basic objection to any belief, and evaluative judgments are none the worse because they do not have "reality" or "God" standing behind them. These kinds of moralistic prejudices are a frequent impediment to readings of Nietzsche, I fear.

As with prior discussions on this blog, I only pick serious papers for extended critical discussion. This is a serious paper that those interested in the meta-axiological issues should read.

Go here to see the original:
Brian Leiter's Nietzsche Blog

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (AFI:[fid vllm nit]; Rcken, 15 de octubre de 1844-Weimar, 25 de agosto de 1900) fue un filsofo, poeta, msico y fillogo alemn, considerado uno de los pensadores contemporneos ms influyentes del siglo XIX.

Realiz una crtica exhaustiva de la cultura, la religin y la filosofa occidental, mediante la genealoga de los conceptos que las integran, basada en el anlisis de las actitudes morales (positivas y negativas) hacia la vida.[1] Este trabajo afect profundamente a generaciones posteriores de telogos, antroplogos, filsofos, socilogos, psiclogos, politlogos, historiadores, poetas, novelistas y dramaturgos.

Medit sobre las consecuencias del triunfo del secularismo de la Ilustracin, expresada en su observacin Dios ha muerto, de una manera que determin la agenda de muchos de los intelectuales ms clebres despus de su muerte.

Si bien hay quienes sostienen que la caracterstica definitoria de Nietzsche no es tanto la temtica que trataba sino el estilo y la sutileza con que lo haca, fue un autor que introdujo, como ningn otro, una cosmovisin que ha reorganizado el pensamiento del siglo XX, en autores tales como Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Gianni Vattimo o Michel Onfray, entre otros.

Nietzsche recibi amplio reconocimiento durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX como una figura significativa en la filosofa moderna. Su influencia fue particularmente notoria en los filsofos existencialistas, crticos, fenomenolgicos, postestructuralistas y posmodernos, y en la sociologa de Max Weber. Es considerado uno de los tres maestros de la sospecha (segn la conocida expresin de Paul Ricoeur), junto a Karl Marx y Sigmund Freud.

Friedrich Nietzsche naci el 15 de octubre de 1844 en Rcken, un pequeo pueblo de Sajonia-Anhalt, cerca de Leipzig. Su nombre proviene del rey Federico Guillermo IV de Prusia, en cuyo cuadragsimo noveno cumpleaos naci. Sus padres fueron Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813-1849), pastor luterano y preceptor privado en el ducado alemn de Sajonia-Altenburgo en Turingia, y Franziska Oehler (1826-1897). Su hermana Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche naci en 1846, seguida por su hermano Ludwig Joseph en 1848. Tras la muerte del padre en 1849 y del hermano menor en 1850 la familia se traslad a Naumburgo, donde vivi con su abuela materna y las hermanas solteras del padre bajo la proteccin de Bemhard Dchsel, un magistrado local.

El primer acontecimiento que me conmocion cuando an estaba formndose mi conciencia, fue la enfermedad de mi padre. Era un reblandecimiento cerebral. La intensidad de los dolores que sufra mi padre, la ceguera que le sobrevino, su figura macilenta, las lgrimas de mi madre, el aire preocupado del mdico y, finalmente, los incautos comentarios de los lugareos debieron de advertirme de la inminencia de la desgracia que nos amenazaba. Y esa desgracia vino: mi padre muri. Yo an no haba cumplido cuatro aos. Algunos meses despus, perd a mi nico hermano, un nio vivaz e inteligente que, presa de un ataque repentino de convulsiones, muri en unos instantes.

Despus de la muerte de su abuela en 1856, la familia pudo permitirse tener casa propia. Durante este tiempo el joven Nietzsche asisti a un colegio de nios para luego trasladarse a un colegio privado, la prestigiosa escuela Pforta, donde se hizo amigo de Gustav Krug y Wilhelm Pinder, dos estudiantes pertenecientes a familias acomodadas. En 1854 comenz a asistir al Domgymnasium en Naumburgo, pero, habiendo demostrado un talento especial para la msica y el lenguaje, fue admitido en la reconocida Schulpforta, donde continu sus estudios desde 1858 hasta 1864. Aqu se hizo amigo de Paul Deussen y Carl von Gersdorff. Tambin encontr tiempo para la escritura de poemas y composiciones musicales. En Schulpforta, Nietzsche recibi una importante educacin literaria, en especial en el estudio de los clsicos griegos y romanos, y por primera vez experiment la carencia de su vida familiar en un pequeo pueblo de ambiente cristiano. Durante este perodo se encontr bajo la influencia del poeta Ernst Ortlepp.

Despus de su graduacin en 1864, Nietzsche comenz sus estudios en teologa y filologa clsica en la Universidad de Bonn. Por un breve perodo fue miembro de la Burschenschaft Frankonia junto a Deussen. Para disgusto de su madre, abandon sus estudios de teologa tras un semestre y comenz los de filologa con el profesor Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl. Al ao siguiente sigui al maestro a la Universidad de Leipzig. All entablara una ntima amistad con el estudiante Erwin Rohde. Los primeros escritos sobre filologa de Nietzsche seran publicados un poco ms tarde.

En 1865 se familiariz con la obra de Arthur Schopenhauer. Al ao siguiente ley Geschichte des Materialismus (Historia del materialismo), de Friedrich Albert Lange. Ambas experiencias le resultaron muy estimulantes desde el punto de vista filosfico y, en consecuencia, comenz a adentrarse en esta disciplina, superando su inters por la filologa. En 1867 realiz un ao de servicio militar voluntario con la divisin de artillera prusiana de Naumburgo. En marzo de 1868 sufri un accidente ecuestre que lo excluy del servicio militar y le permiti volver a dedicarse al estudio. Ese mismo ao conoci a Richard Wagner, personaje fundamental en su desarrollo.

Gracias a Ritschl, Nietzsche recibi una oferta extraordinaria de la Universidad de Basilea para ejercer como profesor de filologa clsica antes de licenciarse, siendo as el profesor ms joven de la universidad. En su trabajo filolgico durante esa poca cabe resear el descubrimiento de que el ritmo en la mtrica potica de los antiguos dependa nicamente de la duracin de las slabas a diferencia de la mtrica moderna basada en la acentuacin.

En 1869 la Universidad de Leipzig le concedi el doctorado sin examen ni disertacin en mrito a la calidad de sus investigaciones. Inmediatamente la Universidad de Basilea lo nombr profesor de filologa clsica y al ao siguiente fue ascendido a profesor honorario.

Despus de trasladarse a Basilea, Nietzsche renunci a su ciudadana alemana, mantenindose durante el resto de su vida oficialmente sin nacionalidad alguna.[3] Sin embargo en agosto de 1870 obtuvo un permiso para servir en el bando prusiano durante la guerra franco-prusiana pero slo como mdico camillero ya que la neutral Suiza le impidi reclutarse como combatiente. Su paso por la milicia fue tan slo de un mes, pero vivi mltiples experiencias. All fue testigo de los efectos traumticos de la batalla. Contrajo difteria y disentera, enfermedades que le arruinaron la salud de por vida.

De vuelta a Basilea, Nietzsche fue testigo del establecimiento del Imperio alemn y el auge de Otto von Bismarck, a quien vea como un extranjero y con escepticismo. En la universidad pronunci su discurso inaugural, Sobre la personalidad de Homero. En esta poca conoci a Franz Overbeck, un profesor de Teologa, cuya amistad conserv durante el resto de su vida. El historiador Jacob Burckhardt, cuyas lecturas Nietzsche analizaba frecuentemente, se convirti en otro colega influyente. Tambin durante este perodo leer la obra del filsofo Max Stirner, cuya influencia ser notable en l.[4]

Nietzsche haba conocido ya a Richard Wagner en Leipzig en 1868, y (algo despus) a la esposa de Wagner, Csima. Admiraba a ambos profundamente y, durante su estancia en Basilea, fue un asiduo invitado en la casa de los Wagner en Tribschen. stos lo introdujeron en su crculo ms ntimo y le agradecieron la atencin que dio al principio al Festival de Bayreuth. En 1870 regal a Csima Wagner por su cumpleaos el manuscrito de la primera versin de El origen de la tragedia.

En 1872, Nietzsche publica su primer libro, El nacimiento de la tragedia en el espritu de la msica. Sin embargo el trabajo, en el cual sigui un preciso mtodo filolgico para estructurar toda su especulacin filosfica radicalmente novedosa, no fue bien recibido entre sus colegas fillogos, incluido su profesor Ritschl. En el polmico panfleto Para una filologa del futuro, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff critic duramente el libro, lo que contribuy, sin embargo, a aumentar su polmica notoriedad en los crculos filolgicos y universitarios de Alemania. En respuesta, Rohde, por la fecha profesor en Kiel, y el mismo Wagner salieron pblicamente en defensa de Nietzsche. Estos hechos remarcaron el aislamiento creciente que senta dentro de la comunidad filolgica, y por ello el filsofo intent (infructuosamente) ganar la ctedra de Filosofa en Basilea.

Entre 1873 y 1876, Nietzsche public separadamente cuatro grandes ensayos, David Strauss, el confesor y el escritor, Sobre el uso y el abuso vital de la historia, Schopenhauer como educador, y Richard Wagner en Bayreuth (estos cuatro fueron ms tarde recogidos y titulados, conjuntamente, Consideraciones intempestivas). Los cuatro ensayos compartan la orientacin de una crtica general a la actualidad cultural alemana, en un intento por cambiar su rumbo, que Nietzsche prevea como esencialmente falso y equivocado. Comenzando en 1873, adems, tambin acumul notas que fueron publicadas ms tarde como La filosofa en la poca trgica de los griegos.

Durante este periodo, en el crculo de los Wagner, Nietzsche conoci a Malwida von Meysenbug y Hans von Blow, y tambin comenz una amistad con Paul Re, quien despus de 1876 le influy en la atenuacin del pesimismo de sus primeros escritos. Sin embargo, debido a su decepcin respecto al fenmeno Wagner, y en concreto al Festival de Bayreuth de 1876, donde la banalidad de los actos y la vileza del pblico le repelieron, fue cada vez ms insalvable la distancia del filsofo hacia este mundo.

En 1879, despus de un declive de salud, se vio forzado a abandonar su puesto como profesor. Desde su juventud, Nietzsche haba padecido frecuentes momentos de debilidad generalizada, con pocas de carencia visual que rozaba la ceguera, fuertes migraas y violentos ataques estomacales. Estas condiciones persistentes se agravaron quiz con su accidente a caballo en 1868 y las enfermedades de 1870, y continuaron afectndolo durante sus aos en Basilea, forzndolo a tomar vacaciones cada vez ms largas, hasta que le fue prcticamente imposible retomar el trabajo.

Con la publicacin de Humano, demasiado humano en 1878, un libro de aforismos sobre mltiples temas, desde la metafsica hasta la moralidad y de la religin al sexo, la distancia de Nietzsche respecto a la filosofa de Wagner y Schopenhauer fue evidente. Tambin su amistad con Deussen y Rohde se enfri.

Durante sus primeros aos en Basilea se cocin la ambivalente amistad de Nietzsche con Wagner, y aprovech toda oportunidad para visitar a Richard y a su esposa Csima. Nietzsche apreciaba a Wagner como un brillante apstol catedrtico, pero la explotacin de motivos artsticos cristianos cada vez ms acentuada, junto con su chovinismo y antisemitismo excederan lo que Nietzsche podra soportar.

La composicin de Parsifal, que Wagner concebira ms como un auto litrgico para el Viernes Santo que como una pera, ofendi profundamente la sensibilidad de Nietzsche. Aunque la gigantesca obra no sera estrenada hasta 1882, ya en 1878 la brecha entre los dos sera ineludible y definitiva.

Conducido por su enfermedad a encontrar climas ms templados, Nietzsche viaj frecuentemente y vivi hasta 1889 como un autor independiente en diferentes ciudades. Estuvo muchos veranos en Sils Maria, cerca de St. Moritz, en la Engandina (extremo este de Suiza), y muchos otoos en las ciudades italianas de Gnova, Rapallo y Turn, y la ciudad francesa de Niza. Ocasionalmente volva a Naumburgo a visitar a su familia, y especialmente durante este perodo, l y su hermana tuvieron repetidos episodios de conflicto y reconciliacin. Viva de su pensin de profesor retirado de la Universidad de Basilea, pero tambin reciba ayuda de amigos.

Un antiguo estudiante suyo, Peter Gast (seudnimo de Johann Heinrich Kselitz), lleg a ser su secretario privado. Hasta el final de su vida, Gast y Overbeck se mantuvieron como amigos en los que confiar. Malwida von Meysenbug mantuvo una conducta maternal incluso fuera del crculo de Wagner. Pronto Nietzsche contact con el crtico musical Carl Fuchs.

Nietzsche se encontraba en el principio de su mayor perodo productivo. A partir de Humano, demasiado humano en 1878, Nietzsche publicara un libro (o su mayor parte) por ao hasta 1888, su ltimo ao de escritura, durante el cual complet cinco. En 1879, Nietzsche public Opiniones y mximas mezcladas, lo que sugiri el aforismo de Humano, demasiado humano.

En 1881 Nietzsche publica Aurora. Reflexiones sobre los prejuicios morales, y en 1882 la primera parte de La gaya ciencia. Este ao tambin conoci a Lou Andreas-Salom a travs de Malwida von Meysenbug y Paul Re. Nietzsche y Salom estuvieron el verano juntos en Tautenburg, a menudo con la hermana de Nietzsche, Elisabeth. Sin embargo, la visin que de Nietzsche tena Salom era ms la de un amigo y compaero de discusiones lleno de genialidad, que el de una posible pareja. l se enamor de ella lo cual provoc una situacin ambigua e incmoda entre los tres amigos, puesto que Re a su vez se interesaba por Lou. Cuando Nietzsche le pidi que se casara con l, Salom lo rechaz. Las relaciones de Nietzsche con Salom y Re se rompieron en el otoo de 1882-1883, en parte por las intrigas llevadas a cabo por su hermana Elisabeth. En paralelo a esta historia, Lou Salom de vez en cuando mantena correspondencia con Freud, introducindolo en el pensamiento de Nietzsche. En el proceso de aparicin de nuevos sntomas de su enfermedad, aislado tras las discusiones con su hermana y su madre, y acosado por pensamientos suicidas, se march a Rapallo, donde en solo diez das, anticipados por dieciocho meses de incubacin, escribi la primera parte de As habl Zaratustra.

Despus de varias crticas filosficas contra Schopenhauer y Wagner, Nietzsche mantuvo a pocos amigos. Ahora, bajo la impronta personalsima del Zaratustra sobre sus obras posteriores, su escritura result todava ms intempestiva y se lo ley (poco) slo en la medida en que pareciera adecuarse a las convenciones morales o intelectuales del momento. Nietzsche reconoci la situacin y se obstin en su soledad (las siete soledades), incluso aunque a veces pareciera no resignarse a ella. Abandon su plan a medio plazo de convertirse en un poeta pblico y reconocido, y sigui padeciendo los problemas consabidos con sus libros. Estos eran tan buenos como poco vendidos. En 1885, edit nicamente cuarenta copias de la cuarta parte de As habl Zaratustra, y solo una pequea parte fue distribuida entre sus amigos ms allegados.

En 1886, edit Ms all del bien y del mal. Con este libro y con la aparicin entre 1886 y 1887 de segundas ediciones de sus trabajos tempranos (El nacimiento de la tragedia, Humano, demasiado humano, y La gaya ciencia), vio completado su trabajo y se esperanz con que una oleada de lectores apreciara sus escritos. De hecho, el inters por Nietzsche aument en esta poca, aunque esto fue apenas percibido por l.

Durante estos aos, Nietzsche conoci a Meta von Salis, Carl Spitteler, y tambin a Gottfried Keller. En 1886, su hermana Elisabeth se cas con el antisemita Bernhard Frster y viaj con l a Paraguay[5] para fundar una colonia alemana, un plan al que Nietzsche contest con irona. A travs de la correspondencia se puede observar que la relacin de Nietzsche con su hermana continu por el camino que siempre haba seguido de conflicto y reconciliacin, pero no la volvera a ver en persona hasta despus de su colapso.

Nietzsche continuaba teniendo ataques frecuentes de enfermedad, lo que le imposibilit para el trabajo continuo. En 1887, Nietzsche rpidamente escribi su polmica Genealoga de la moral. Tambin intercambiaba correspondencia con Hippolyte Taine, y despus tambin con Georg Brandes, quien al comienzo de 1888 desarroll en Copenhague la primera lectura pblica de la obra filosfica de Nietzsche y su estudio.

En el mismo ao Nietzsche escribi cinco libros basados en sus voluminosas notas, fruto de largo trabajo continuado, que en un principio pensaba reunir bajo el ttulo de La voluntad de poder. Su salud pareci mejorar y aquel verano estuvo de buen humor. Pero hacia finales de 1888, sus escritos y cartas empezaron a revelar una sobreestimacin patolgica de su estatus y destino. Sobrevaloraba la respuesta creciente a sus escritos, sobre todo por la reciente polmica respecto a El caso Wagner.

De octubre a noviembre de 1888, Nietzsche trabaja en la obra Ecce homo (Cmo se llega a ser lo que se es), que no ver la luz hasta el ao 1908 en una versin en la que el captulo Por qu soy tan sabio no aparece, siendo sustituido por otro captulo escrito anteriormente que el propio autor descart.[6]

El 3 de enero de 1889 Nietzsche sufri un colapso mental. Ese da fue detenido tras, al parecer, haber provocado algn tipo de desorden pblico, por las calles de Turn. Lo que pas exactamente es desconocido. La versin ms extendida sobre lo sucedido dice que Nietzsche caminaba por la Piazza Carlo Alberto, cuando un repentino alboroto que caus un cochero al castigar a su caballo llam su atencin. Nietzsche corri hacia l y lanz sus brazos rodeando el cuello del caballo para protegerlo, desvanecindose acto seguido contra el suelo. En los das siguientes, escribi breves cartas para algunos amigos, incluidos Csima Wagner y Jacob Burckhardt, en las que mostraba signos de demencia y megalomana.

A su colega Burckhardt escribi: He tenido Caiphas puestos. Adems, el ao pasado fui crucificado por los doctores alemanes de una manera muy drstica. Wilhelm, Bismarck, y todos los antisemitas abolidos.[7] El 6 de enero de 1889, Burckhardt mostr la carta a Overbeck. El siguiente da Overbeck recibi una carta reveladora semejante, y decidi que Nietzsche debera volver a Basilea. Overbeck viaj a Turn y trajo a Nietzsche a una clnica psiquitrica en Basilea.

Por ese tiempo, Nietzsche estaba enteramente sumergido en la locura, y su madre Franziska decidi llevarlo a una clnica en Jena bajo la direccin de Otto Binswanger. Desde noviembre de 1889 a febrero de 1890, Julius Langben intent curar a Nietzsche, sentenciando que los mtodos del doctor eran ineficaces para curar su condicin. Langbehn asumi ms y ms control sobre Nietzsche. En marzo de 1890, Franziska sac a Nietzsche de la clnica, y en mayo de 1890 lo llev a su casa en Naumburgo.

Durante este proceso, Overbeck y Gast contemplaban la idea de qu hacer con el trabajo no publicado de Nietzsche. En enero de 1889 se pusieron a planear la salida de El ocaso de los dolos, o cmo se filosofa a martillazos, por esa poca ya impreso y atado. En febrero, ordenaron una edicin privada de 50 copias de Nietzsche contra Wagner, pero el editor C.G.Nauman en secreto imprimi 100. Overbeck y Gast decidieron publicar con reservas El Anticristo y Ecce homo debido a su contenido ms radical.

En 1893, Elisabeth Nietzsche volvi de Paraguay[5] despus del suicidio de su marido. Ley y estudi los trabajos de Nietzsche, y pieza por pieza tom control sobre ellos y su publicacin. Overbeck fue paulatinamente relegado al ostracismo, y Gast finalmente cooper. Despus de la muerte de Franziska en 1897, Nietzsche vivi en Weimar, donde fue cuidado por Elisabeth, quien permiti a la gente visitar a su poco comunicativo hermano. El 25 de agosto de 1900, Nietzsche muri despus de contraer neumona. Por deseo de Elisabeth, fue inhumado junto a su padre en la iglesia de Rcken.

La causa del hundimiento de Nietzsche ha sido un tema de especulacin y origen incierto. Un frecuente y temprano diagnstico era una infeccin de sfilis, sin embargo, algunos de los sntomas de Nietzsche eran inconsistentes. Otro diagnstico posible es un meningioma derecho retroorbital, un tipo de cncer cerebral.[8] En su libro La lucha contra el demonio, Stefan Zweig presenta una psicobiografa sobre Nietzsche en que sita la etiologa de su locura desde un ngulo puramente psicognico.[citarequerida]

Hay una controversia sobre si Nietzsche abogaba por un nico punto de vista de comprensin filosfica. Muchos cargan contra Nietzsche por la contradiccin de sus pensamientos e ideas.

Una tesis alternativa en la contradiccin de los escritos de Nietzsche es el de la perspectiva, o la idea de que Nietzsche usaba mltiples puntos de vista en su trabajo como un medio para retar al lector a considerar varias facetas de un tema. Si uno acepta su tesis, la variedad y nmero de perspectivas sirven como una afirmacin de la riqueza de la filosofa. Esto no quiere decir que Nietzsche viera todas las ideas como igualmente vlidas. Tena aspectos en los que no estaba de acuerdo con respecto a otros filsofos como Kant. Tampoco est claro dnde se posicionaba Nietzsche en cada tema. De cualquier modo, si uno mantiene los elementos en conflicto de sus escritos como algo intencionado o no, hay pocas dudas de que sus ideas siguen siendo influyentes.

Algunos filsofos han signado al estilo aforstico de Nietzsche como el responsable de estas aparentes contradicciones en su pensamiento, llegando a decir por ejemplo que hay tantos Nietzsches como lectores. Esta afirmacin resulta excesivamente cmoda ya que slo pretende facilitar la explicacin de las contradicciones sin intentar desentraar su sentido final.

La filosofa de Nietzsche se halla atravesada esencialmente por la herencia de la cosmologa clsica, en particular por los conceptos de la cosmogona griega. Esto es, la identificacin del carcter ms humano del hombre en relacin con el vnculo que guarda con sus dioses. Hablamos de la dualidad de lo apolneo contra lo dionisaco. Nietzsche, aunque no descarta por completo la regencia de lo apolneo en la vida como ha sido heredada, particularmente desde la modernidad, se inclina por resaltar y adoptar una postura en esta lnea de lo dionisaco. En ello consiste precisamente su crtica a la sociedad contempornea y ste ser el hilo conductor que permea de forma constante su obra y su vida.

Para Nietzsche, la sociedad se encuentra sumida en un profundo nihilismo que ha de superar si no quiere ver su fin. El nihilismo (que tiene distintas formas)[9] es un advenimiento de unas repetidas frustraciones en la bsqueda de significado, o ms precisamente, la desvalorizacin de los valores supremos. El nihilismo en Nietzsche se refiere al proceso histrico que surge en el reconocimiento de un valor sumo y termina en la asuncin o reconocimiento de mltiples cosas valorables, al volverse inoperante lo que antes se mostraba como lo supremo. El nihilismo acontece en nuestro tiempo como manifestacin de la ausencia de una medida nica y, al mismo tiempo, como la proliferacin de mltiples medidas que, en cada caso, pueden aparecer como vlidas. Nietzsche ve en el despliegue del nihilismo toda fundacin de cultura europea, la que surge como destino necesario de este proceso. La visin religiosa del mundo haba sufrido ya un gran nmero de cambios por perspectivas contrarias, cayendo en el escepticismo filosfico, y en las teoras cientficas evolucionistas y heliocntricas modernas, lo que no hace ms que confirmar la desvalorizacin de los valores supremos. A lo ya sealado, hemos de sumar una creciente presencia de lo democrtico, la que se muestra como la afirmacin de una individualidad independiente de Dios y acreedora de la igualdad, de la mediana. La democracia aparece, a los ojos de Nietzsche, como un momento del despliegue del nihilismo igualmente negador de la vida que los que la antecedieron. Ambas manifestaciones del nihilismo se muestran a Nietzsche como negaciones de la vida, al negar u olvidar dimensiones de la misma que, a su parecer, aparecen como constitutivas de ella e inalienables a lo que l considera vida. Estas dimensiones negadas de la vida se muestran en mbitos tan determinantes como el constante darse del devenir y las diferencias entre los hombres.

Nietzsche ve esta condicin intelectual como un nuevo reto para la cultura europea, lo que se ha extendido, asimismo, ms all de un pequeo punto de no-retorno. Nietzsche conceptualiza esto con su famosa frase, Dios ha muerto, que aparece en La gaya ciencia y en As habl Zaratustra. Esta frase fue dada tambin por Hegel veinte aos antes de que Nietzsche naciera. Este aforismo, por una parte, seala el fin de eso que antes apareca como lo imperante, y por otra, indica un terreno frtil, un terreno inexplorado, en el cual el propio Nietzsche es un colono. A partir de la frase Dios ha muerto, Nietzsche se refiere tanto a la ceguera del pasado en tanto incapacidad de ver esto, como a la asuncin de una nueva posibilidad de relacionarse con lo que es, posibilidad dada por la asuncin de dicha muerte.

Nietzsche trata esta frase ms que como una mera declaracin provocativa, casi como una revelacin, como si representase el potencial de nihilismo que arrastra el alzamiento y el progreso, en el contexto de un concepto absurdo y sin significado.

Segn Nietzsche, el hombre europeo descendiente de los hiperbreos ha de asumir la gran e inevitable consecuencia de la muerte en la sociedad occidental de Dios, del Dios judeo-cristiano, el vengativo y cruel Yahv. La consecuencia de la muerte de Dios es que los valores vigentes en la sociedad occidental se vienen abajo ellos solos, segn el nihilismo, o no se vienen abajo sino que los hombres los destruimos. Segn Nietzsche la superacin del nihilismo se producir cuando el bermensch imponga los nuevos valores de la moral de seores, destruyendo los valores de la moral de esclavos. Resumiendo, destruimos los valores de los hombres para poner en su lugar los valores del bermensch, que ocupar el lugar de Dios.

No osteis hablar de aquel loco que en pleno da corra por la plaza pblica con una linterna encendida, gritando sin cesar: Busco a Dios! Busco a Dios!. Como estaban presentes muchos que no crean en Dios, sus gritos provocaron la risa. [...] El loco se encar con ellos, y clavndoles la mirada, exclam: Dnde est Dios? Os lo voy a decir. Le hemos matado; vosotros y yo, todos nosotros somos sus asesinos. Pero cmo hemos podido hacerlo? Cmo pudimos vaciar el mar? Quin nos dio la esponja para borrar el horizonte? Qu hemos hecho despus de desprender a la Tierra de la rbita del sol? [...] No caemos sin cesar? No caemos hacia adelante, hacia atrs, en todas direcciones? Hay todava un arriba y un abajo? Flotamos en una nada infinita? Nos persigue el vaco [...]? No hace ms fro? No veis de continuo acercarse la noche, cada vez ms cerrada? [...] Dios ha muerto! [...] Y nosotros le dimos muerte! Cmo consolarnos nosotros, asesinos entre los asesinos! Lo ms sagrado, lo ms poderoso que haba hasta ahora en el mundo ha teido con su sangre nuestro cuchillo. Quin borrar esa mancha de sangre? Qu agua servir para purificarnos? [...] La enormidad de este acto, no es demasiado grande para nosotros?

Nietzsche pensaba que haba dos clases de hombres: los seores y los siervos, que han dado distinto sentido a la moral. Para los seores, el binomio bien-mal equivale a noble-despreciable. Desprecian como malo todo aquello que es fruto de la cobarda, el temor, la compasin, todo lo que es dbil y disminuye el impulso vital. Aprecian como bueno, en cambio, todo lo superior y altivo, fuerte y dominador. La moral de los seores se basa en la fe en s mismos, el orgullo propio.

Por el contrario, la moral de los siervos nace de los oprimidos y dbiles, y comienza por condenar los valores y las cualidades de los poderosos. Una vez denigrado el podero, el dominio, la gloria de los seores, el esclavo procede a decretar como buenas las cualidades de los dbiles: la compasin, el servicio propios del cristianismo, la paciencia, la humildad. Los siervos inventan una moral que haga ms llevadera su condicin de esclavos. Como tienen que obedecer a los seores, los siervos dicen que la obediencia es buena y que el orgullo es malo. Como los esclavos son dbiles promueven valores como la mansedumbre y la misericordia; por el contrario, critican el egosmo y la fuerza.

La crtica de Nietzsche a la moral tradicional se centraba en la tipologa de moral de amo y de esclavo y en la descripcin de la dinmica que generan; esta dinmica o dialctica debe ser conocida por los espritus libres para conducir a la humanidad a su superacin: una sucesin de continuas superaciones la moral deja de ser algo cerrado para ser visto como una dinmica de morales yuxtapuestas y reconocibles en la dinmica de las lenguas. Examinando la etimologa de las palabras alemanas gut (bueno), schlecht (malo) y bse (malvado), Nietzsche sostuvo que la distincin entre el bien y el mal fue originalmente descriptiva, o sea, una referencia amoral a aquellos que eran privilegiados (los amos), en contraste con los que eran inferiores (los esclavos). El contraste bueno/malvado surge cuando los esclavos se vengan convirtiendo los atributos de la supremaca en vicios. Si los favorecidos (los buenos) eran poderosos, se deca que los sumisos heredaran la Tierra. El orgullo se volvi pecado, mientras que la caridad, humildad y obediencia reemplazaron a la competencia, el orgullo y la autonoma. La insistencia en la absolutidad (Absolutheit) es esencial tanto en la tica religiosa como filosfica y fue clave para el triunfo de la moral de esclavo mediante la presuncin de ser la nica moral verdadera.

Los judos un pueblo nacido para la esclavitud, como dicen Tcito y todo el mundo antiguo, el pueblo elegido entre los pueblos, como dicen y creen ellos mismos los judos han llevado a efecto aquel prodigio de inversin de los valores gracias al cual la vida en la tierra ha adquirido, para unos cuantos milenios, un nuevo y peligroso atractivo: sus profetas han fundido, reducindolas a una sola, las palabras rico, ateo, malvado, violento, sensual, y han transformado por vez primera la palabra mundo en una palabra infamante. En esa inversin de los valores (de la que forma parte el emplear la palabra pobre como sinnimo de santo y amigo) reside la importancia del pueblo judo: con l comienza la rebelin de los esclavos en la moral.

La voluntad de poder (der Wille zur Macht) es un concepto altamente controvertido en la filosofa nietzscheana, generando intenso debate e interpretaciones varias, algunas de las cuales, como la notoria interpretacin dada por los intelectuales nazis, fueron intentos deliberados de justificacin de tcticas polticas.

Una manera de abordar este concepto es por medio de la crtica nietzscheana a la teora de la evolucin de Darwin. Nietzsche vea en los instintos una fuerza que iba ms all del slo impulso a sobrevivir, protegerse y reproducirse de todos los seres vivos, de slo ser esto la vida se estancara. La supervivencia era una de las consecuencias de un deseo an mayor, impulso hacia una supravivencia, un deseo perpetuo de todo ser vivo por ir ms all de todos, el todo y hasta ms all de s mismo, ms all de la muerte. Este impulso irracional o deseo perpetuo por expandirse impreso en cada ser es lo nico que da sentido a la existencia, paradjicamente razn de ser y es la fuerza principal dentro de la visin trgica o dionisaca de Nietzsche.

Las teoras posteriores de Sigmund Freud respecto al inconsciente probablemente fueron inspiradas en gran parte por los conceptos de lo Dionisaco y la voluntad de poder, las cuales Freud relacion a los instintos sexuales primitivos, por encima de cualquier otro instinto, y su represin y control excesivo por el consciente o parte Apolnea del ser como generadores de la histeria y otras dolencias.

La idea del eterno retorno ha sido tratada como un concepto basilar para Nietzsche por muchos, aunque no por todos los intrpretes.

Nietzsche encuentra la idea en los trabajos de Heinrich Heine, quien especulaba que llegara el da en el que la persona volvera a nacer con el mismo proceso de l mismo, y con el mismo en todas las dems personas. Nietzsche expandi este concepto para formar su teora, la cual resalt en La gaya ciencia y desarroll en As habl Zaratustra. En las lecturas de Nietzsche sobre Schopenhauer, le salt la idea del eterno retorno. Schopenhauer sentenciaba que una persona que se afirmara en la vida incondicionalmente lo hara incluso si todo lo que le haba pasado le ocurriera de nuevo de forma repetida.

En unas pocas ocasiones en sus notas, Nietzsche discurre la posibilidad del eterno retorno como verdad cosmolgica (vase el libro de Arthur Danto Nietzsche como filsofo para un anlisis en detalle de estos esfuerzos), pero en los trabajos que l prepar para publicar est tratado como el mtodo ms vanguardista de afirmacin de la vida. Segn Nietzsche, requerira un sincero Amor fati (Amor al destino), no simplemente para sobrellevar, sino para desear la ocurrencia del eterno retorno de todos los eventos exactamente como ocurrieron, todo el dolor y la alegra, lo embarazoso y la gloria, esta repeticin, ms de emociones y sentimientos que de hechos, es lo que configurara el tipo y la raza universal y global del por venir, no como una raza de las ya existentes, sino como una posibilidad abierta del hombre inacabado como especie gentica y lingstica que debe ser perfilada por el eterno retorno de la superacin de sus previos pensamientos y hechos.

Nietzsche menciona la idea de lo horrible y paralizante, y tambin mantiene que la carga de esta idea es el peso ms pesado imaginable (Das schwerste Gewicht). El deseo del eterno retorno de todos los eventos marcara la afirmacin de la vida definitiva.

Segn algunos intrpretes, el eterno retorno es ms que el mero concepto intelectual o reto, refleja una Kan, o caracterstica psicolgica que ocupa la estimulacin consciente etrea, una transformacin de consciencia conocida como metanoia.

Alexander Nehamas escribi en Nietzsche: vida como literatura que hay tres maneras de ver el eterno retorno: (a) Mi vida volver del mismo modo. Esto es una aproximacin fatalista a la idea; (b) Mi vida puede ocurrir del mismo modo. Esta segunda visin es una asercin condicional de cosmologa, pero falla al captar lo que Nietzsche se refiere en La gaya ciencia; (c) Es mi vida por re-ocurrir, entonces podra re-ocurrir slo en idntico modo. Nehamas muestra que esta interpretacin es totalmente independiente de la fsica y no presupone la verdad de la cosmologa. La interpretacin de Nehamas es que los individuos se constituyen ellos mismos a travs de las acciones y la nica manera de mantenerse a ellos mismos como son es vivir en una reocurrencia de acciones pasadas.

El eterno retorno cumple pues dos funciones en la filosofa de Nietzsche. La primera es remarcar el amor a la vida. Los cristianos postulan un paraso, Platn el mundo de las ideas. Nietzsche dice que despus est otra vez la tierra, el mundo: porque no hay nada ms. Por otro lado cumple una funcin tica. Quien acepta el eterno retorno, se previene y acepta sus actos. Con el dolor que puedan contraer, con el placer que puedan conllevar: no hay lugar para el arrepentimiento.

Extrapolando ideas del darwinismo Nietzsche considera que el ser humano (Mensch) es un ser incompleto, pues todo animal da lugar a algo superior. Es un puente entre el simio y el bermensch (trmino que ha sido traducido con frecuencia, aunque no con excesiva fortuna, como 'superhombre' o 'suprahombre', existiendo autores que prefieren su traduccin como 'ultrahombre'). El hombre es, por tanto, algo que debe ser saltado, superado. El bermensch es aquel ser que tiene una moral de nobles, es un noble, y acepta la voluntad de poder: es un hombre legislador, l crea sus propias normas, morales y de todo tipo, adems es un hombre que somete las cosas a su voluntad, es un hombre vital: ama la vida y este mundo. Adems es un ser que acepta el eterno retorno, pues cuando toma una decisin realmente la quiere tomar, y no se arrepiente de sus actos. Sabe que la vida es en parte dolor y en parte placer, pero no reniega de ello.

Desarrollando la idea del nihilismo, Nietzsche escribi As habl Zaratustra, introduciendo en l el concepto del primer hombre creador de valores, no como un proyecto, sino como un antiproyecto, la ausencia de proyecto alguno.[11] En dicho libro Zaratustra se refiere a las tres transformaciones del espritu, el que se transforma figurada y sucesivamente en camello, len y finalmente nio. Este estado amoral y de creacin de nuevos valores puede interpretarse como el inicio del camino hacia el ideal del bermensch: Inocencia es el nio, y olvido, un nuevo comienzo, un juego, una rueda que se mueve por s misma, un primer movimiento, un santo decir s. S, hermanos mos, para el juego del crear se precisa un santo decir s: el espritu quiere ahora su voluntad, el retirado del mundo conquista ahora su mundo.

Hay controversia sobre qu o a quin consideraba Nietzsche como bermensch. No slo hay cierta base para pensar que Nietzsche era escptico sobre la identidad individual y la nocin de sujeto, sino que habra un ejemplo concreto del Ultrahombre como algo nuclear. Las interpretaciones modernas de Nietzsche, especialmente despus del trabajo de Walter Kaufmann, sugieren que la visin de Nietzsche sobre el bermensch est ms en lnea con el concepto de hombre renacentista, como Goethe o Da Vinci.

Normalmente se traduce como superhombre; sin embargo esta traduccin es errnea ya que el prefijo alemn ber significa 'superior' como adjetivo, o 'sobre' (como el over ingls). Adems Mensch significa 'humano', 'persona', esto es, 'hombre' en trminos de especie, y no de sexo. En castellano puede dar lugar a equvocos si se lo lee con mala intencin. Por lo tanto, la traduccin ms correcta al castellano sera 'suprahumano' o 'sobrehumano', pero en el uso ms convencional sera 'suprahombre', o bien, 'ultrahombre', tal como el filsofo Vattimo ha sugerido.

Siempre debe recordarse que el concepto se contrapone a cualquier trmino sexista y al de el ltimo hombre, el que presenciar el gran medioda que representa el ltimo paso de superacin del hombre moral y septentrional, y la etapa final del nihilismo. Es en este sentido en que debe entenderse al super-hombre como uno de los objetivos nietzscheanos, y no como una calidad a la que se pueda acceder, o una categora que se pueda obtener.

En su libro El Anticristo, maldicin sobre el cristianismo (1888), Nietzsche escribe sobre cmo la cristiandad se ha convertido en una ideologa establecida por instituciones como la Iglesia, y cmo las iglesias han fallado a la hora de representar la vida de Jess. Es importante, para l, distinguir entre la religin de la cristiandad y la persona de Jess. Nietzsche explic la religin cristiana como si fuera representado por iglesias e instituciones a las que llamaba su transvaloracin (del alemn Umwertung) de los valores instintivos saludables. Transvaloracin es el proceso por el cual el significado de un concepto o ideologa puede ser puesto al revs de lo expresado por su etimologa. Fue ms all del pensamiento de los agnsticos o ateos de la Ilustracin, quienes sentan que la Cristiandad era simplemente falsa. l afirmaba que ha podido ser deliberadamente infundida como una religin subversiva (como un arma psicolgica subversiva) dentro del Imperio Romano por el apstol Pablo como una forma de cobrar venganza por la destruccin romana de Jerusaln y su templo durante la Primera guerra judeo-romana.

Nietzsche contrasta a los cristianos con Jess, a quien admiraba de gran modo. Nietzsche argumenta que Jess transcendi las influencias morales de su tiempo creando su propio sistema de valores. Jess representaba un paso hacia el bermensch. Al final, Nietzsche clama sin embargo: en contraste con el suprahombre, quien abraza la vida, Jess negaba la realeza en favor de su Reino de Dios. La negacin de Jess para defenderse a s mismo, y su muerte, eran consecuencias lgicas de su desajuste de sistema de ideas.

Nietzsche entonces analiz la historia de la cristiandad, descubriendo una distorsin progresiva de modo grotesco de las enseanzas de Jess. l critica a los primeros cristianos por convertir a Jess en un mrtir y la vida de Jess dentro de la historia de la salvacin de la humanidad como motivo para dominar a las masas, encontrando a los apstoles cobardes, vulgares y resentidos. Argumenta que las sucesivas generaciones malentendieron la vida de Jess, mientras la influencia de la cristiandad creca. En el siglo XIX, Nietzsche concluye que la cristiandad se ha vuelto tan mundana al punto de hacerse una parodia de s misma, una total manipulacin de sus enseanzas y su buena nueva. Es por esto que concluy en una de sus frases ms clebres: El ltimo cristiano muri en la cruz, puesto que Pablo de Tarso y los primeros cristianos (los anticristianos) solo hicieron negocio con su figura a travs de su iglesia y nadie sigui realmente ni aspir jams a aceptar la doctrina de Cristo.

Esta acusacin eterna contra el cristianismo la quiero escribir en todas las paredes; yo tengo un alfabeto aun para los ciegos... Llamo al cristianismo la gran maldicin, la gran corrupcin soterrada, el gran instinto de la venganza para el cual ningn medio es bastante prfido, furtivo, subrepticio y mezquino; lo llamo, en resumen, la mancha inmortal de la humanidad.[12]

Nietzsche aborda la tica desde diferentes perspectivas. En trminos de hoy en da, podemos decir que sus obras tocan los mbitos de la metatica, la tica normativa, y la tica descriptiva.

En lo referente a la metatica, Nietzsche puede ser clasificado quiz como un escptico moral. Esto es en la medida en que afirma que todas las sentencias ticas son falsas, porque cualquier tipo de correspondencia entre sentencias morales y hechos es ilusoria y mendaz. Esta afirmacin forma parte de aquella otra ms general segn la cual no existe una verdad universal, pues ninguna corresponde a la realidad ms que de una forma aparente. En realidad, las afirmaciones ticas, como todas las afirmaciones, son meras interpretaciones como mnimo siempre parciales sobrepuestas a la realidad, fundamentalmente ininterpretable.

A veces, Nietzsche puede parecer tener opiniones muy definidas en lo que es moral e inmoral. Hay que notar, no obstante, que las opiniones morales de Nietzsche se pueden explicar sin atribuirle la afirmacin de que son ciertas. Segn Nietzsche, no necesitamos descartar una afirmacin simplemente porque sea falsa. Al contrario, a menudo afirma que la falsedad es esencial para la vida. Curiosamente, en sus discusiones figuradas con Wagner en El caso Wagner menciona la mentira deshonesta, como opuesta a la mentira honesta. Posteriormente menciona a Platn como referente sobre sta ltima. Esto debera dar una idea de los mltiples niveles interpretativos de su obra, a menudo aparentemente paradjicos si no se toman las debidas cautelas hermenuticas.

En la disyuntiva entre tica normativa y tica descriptiva distingue entre la moral de seor y la moral de esclavo. Aunque reconoce que es muy difcil encontrar un ejemplo real de alguien que mantenga una u otra moral pura sin algn tipo de yuxtaposicin (de hecho era consciente de estar haciendo historia al vislumbrar genealgicamente esta distincin), las presenta, a lo largo de la historia y actualmente en tanto que pulsiones humanas atemporales, una en contraste de la otra. Algunos de estos contrastes de una moral frente a la otra son:

Estas ideas fueron elaboradas en su libro La genealoga de la moral, en el cual adems introdujo el concepto clave del resentimiento como base de la moral del esclavo.

Tambin es conocido como hemos dicho por su frase Dios ha muerto, mientras en la creencia popular se cree que es Nietzsche de donde procede esta frase, es puesta en verdad en boca de un personaje, un hombre loco, en La gaya ciencia. Fue ms adelante dicha por el Zaratustra de Nietzsche. Estas frases malinterpretadas no proclaman una muerte fsica, sino un final natural a la creencia de dios. Est altamente malentendido como una declaracin de regocijo, cuando es descrito como un lamento trgico por el personaje de Zaratustra.

Dios ha muerto es ms una observacin que una declaracin. Nietzsche no dio argumentos para el atesmo, sino meramente observ que, para todos los efectos prcticos, sus contemporneos vivan como si Dios estuviera muerto. Nietzsche crea que esta muerte minaba los fundamentos de la moral y que acabara por desembocar en el ms completo nihilismo y relativismo moral. Para evitar esto, l crea en la revaluacin de los fundamentos de la moral para comprender mejor los motivos y orgenes subyacentes de los primeros. De esta manera los individuos podran decidir por s mismos si un valor moral es obsoleto o est desviado por imposiciones culturales o quieren realmente tomar ese valor como cierto.

Si bien es fcil ver un aire poltico en los escritos de Nietzsche, su trabajo no fue de ningn modo pensado para ser un panfleto poltico. La influencia que Nietzsche ejerci sobre la poltica de la nueva derecha fue realmente extensa. Afirm que el poder de un sistema es signo de falta de integridad, no propuso un sistema de gobierno especfico como solucin, y nunca se vincul a s mismo con movimientos de masas, organizaciones sociales o partidos polticos. En este sentido, Nietzsche casi podra ser llamado un pensador anti-poltico. Walter Kaufmann enfatiza la visin de que el poderoso individualismo expresado en sus escritos sera desastroso si se practicara en las bases reales de los polticos. Escritores posteriores, guiados por la izquierda intelectual francesa, han propuesto maneras de usar la teora nietzscheana en lo que se ha llegado a conocer como polticas de diferencias, en especial formulando teoras sobre resistencia poltica y sobre diferencias sexuales y morales.

Revisando ampliamente los escritos de Kauffmann y otros, el espectro del nazismo ha sido hoy en da casi extinto de sus escritos. Nietzsche a menudo se refera como el rebao a los participantes de los movimientos de masas que comparten una psicologa comn de la masa. Valoraba el individualismo y el lenguaje como obra comn que nos construye y era en especial opuesto al altruismo, pero consideraba sus obras como regalos a la humanidad. Despreciaba al Estado moderno, Nietzsche tambin habl negativamente de demcratas y socialistas y dej claro que slo ciertos individuos podan romper la moral del rebao. Pero son sus propias palabras las que deberan alejar cualquier sospecha de simpata con el nazismo:

Nosotros no amamos a la humanidad, pero tambin estamos muy lejos de ser lo bastante alemanes (en el sentido en que hoy se emplea la palabra) para convertirnos en voceros del nacionalismo y de los odios de razas, para regocijamos con las aversiones y el modo de hacerse mala sangre los pueblos, a que se debe que en Europa se atrincheren unos contra otros cual si quisieran separarse con cuarentenas. [...] Nosotros, los sin patria, somos demasiado variados, demasiado mezclados de razas y de origen para ser hombres modernos, y por consiguiente, nos sentimos muy poco inclinados a participar en esa mentida admiracin de s mismas que hoy practican las razas y en ese descaro con que hoy se ostenta en Alemania, a modo de escarapela, el fanatismo germnico...

La gaya ciencia, 377

Al pueblo se refera como perro de fuego. En Zaratustra desarrolla esta idea como fuerzas dinmicas de las que hay que tomar partido en el desarrollo histrico. El perro de fuego representa los ideales populares por diferenciarse de otros pueblos. En De viejas y nuevas tablas, desarrolla tambin la idea de cmo ciertos valores morales acaban por ser institucionalizados en normas de domesticacin y a eso llaman nacionalismo... domesticar a favor del Estado al perro de fuego que cometi esos desmembramientos de cabeza y dio su apoyo popular a Napolen! Slo el individuo alienado de las masas puede comprender su situacin con respecto al resto.

Los comentarios de Nietzsche sobre las mujeres han provocado una gran polmica. El hecho de que Nietzsche ridiculizara a la humanidad en general no le salva de la carga del sexismo. Algunas de sus afirmaciones sobre las mujeres parecan prefigurar la crtica del post-feminismo contra las versiones primerizas del feminismo, particularmente aquellas que afirman que el feminismo ortodoxo discrimina a las propias mujeres en funcin de su posicin social privilegiada. En este contexto, el pensamiento de Nietzsche ha sido relacionado con el opsculo de Schopenhauer Sobre las mujeres (Parerga y paralipmena), habiendo sido muy probablemente influenciado por l en algn grado.

De todos modos, Nietzsche en su libro Ms all del bien y del mal muestra un carcter misgino similar, en muchos aspectos, al de Schopenhauer. Ambos hablan del sexo femenino como de un segundo papel, y sus comentarios tratan a la mujer hasta como un animal incluso haciendo apologa de los tratos que se le daban a ellas en la antigedad. Habla tambin, Nietzsche, del progreso del feminismo como una degeneracin en la historia, principalmente en lo tratante a la igualdad de derechos a los cuales se muestra en contra.[citarequerida]

Los escritos de Nietzsche han sido interpretados de diversas maneras, e incluso existen casos en los que Nietzsche es citado para sustentar visiones contradictorias.

Por ejemplo, Nietzsche era popular entre el ala izquierdista de la Alemania de 1890, pero unas dcadas despus, durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, muchos le vieron como la raz del ala derecha del militarismo alemn. Tengamos en cuenta que es ms factible que la derecha acepte las mximas nietzscheanas anticompasivas, belicosas y aristocrticas, en tanto las doctrinas igualitarias como el comunismo con la excepcin de la belicosidad y frmulas anticompasivas aplicadas en el rgimen comunista sovitico y la democracia fueron despreciadas por l. Otro ejemplo se establece en la poca del Caso Dreyfus. La derecha antisemita francesa elev la acusacin a judos e intelectuales de izquierdas que defendan a Alfred Dreyfus de ser nietzscheanos. Los conservadores alemanes quisieron censurar los trabajos de Nietzsche ante el peligro de subversin en 1894-1895, mientras que la Alemania nazi lo utiliz como excusa intelectual para promover su idea de la resurreccin de la cultura alemana y de la identidad nacional. Muchos alemanes leyeron As habl Zaratustra y se vieron influenciados por el llamamiento de Nietzsche del individualismo ilimitado y al desarrollo de la propia personalidad. As durante el final del Siglo XIX y el comienzo del Siglo XX las ideas de Nietzsche estaban comnmente asociadas con el movimiento anarquista y parece que tuvieron una influencia dentro de este, particularmente en Francia y Estados Unidos (ver tambin Anarquismo y Friedrich Nietzsche).[13][14][15]

Durante el interbellum, muchos fragmentos del trabajo de Nietzsche fueron apropiados por los nazis, principalmente por Alfred Bumler en La voluntad de poder. Durante el periodo de dominio nazi, las obras de Nietzsche fueron muy estudiadas en los colegios y universidades alemanas. Los nazis creyeron ver en Nietzsche a uno de los padres fundadores. Incorporaron la ideologa y el pensamiento sobre el poder dentro de su propia filosofa poltica. Expresiones como La voluntad de poder fueron relacionadas con el nazismo y proclamadas como paradigma del movimiento. Sin embargo, existen muy pocas, si acaso alguna, similitudes entre Nietzsche y el nazismo. En mltiples pasajes a lo largo de sus obras, Nietzsche defiende ardorosamente a los judos, y expresa su rabia contra la lenta pero imparable corriente antisemita en Alemania, personificada dolorosamente en su propia familia a travs de la figura de su hermana, que adopt fervientemente el ideario racista, influenciada por su marido, para el cual no escatim el filsofo todo tipo de improperios en muchas de sus cartas.

Uno de los ms importantes estudiosos de Nietzsche fue el reconocido filsofo alemn Martin Heidegger. ste fue durante unos meses Rector de la Universidad de Friburgo renunci mucho antes de terminar su perodo, donde realiza su famoso, por lo polmico, Discurso de rectorado, en el cual aparecen ideas nacionalistas, que algunos, han interpretado como un discurso en favor del nuevo Fhrer, por ese entonces, Adolf Hitler.

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Friedrich Nietzsche - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference, often associated with antifoundationalism.

"Nihilism" comes from the Latin nihil, or nothing, which means not anything, that which does not exist. It appears in the verb "annihilate," meaning to bring to nothing, to destroy completely. Early in the nineteenth century, Friedrich Jacobi used the word to negatively characterize transcendental idealism. It only became popularized, however, after its appearance in Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons (1862) where he used "nihilism" to describe the crude scientism espoused by his character Bazarov who preaches a creed of total negation.

In Russia, nihilism became identified with a loosely organized revolutionary movement (C.1860-1917) that rejected the authority of the state, church, and family. In his early writing, anarchist leader Mikhael Bakunin (1814-1876) composed the notorious entreaty still identified with nihilism: "Let us put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life--the passion for destruction is also a creative passion!" (Reaction in Germany, 1842). The movement advocated a social arrangement based on rationalism and materialism as the sole source of knowledge and individual freedom as the highest goal. By rejecting man's spiritual essence in favor of a solely materialistic one, nihilists denounced God and religious authority as antithetical to freedom. The movement eventually deteriorated into an ethos of subversion, destruction, and anarchy, and by the late 1870s, a nihilist was anyone associated with clandestine political groups advocating terrorism and assassination.

The earliest philosophical positions associated with what could be characterized as a nihilistic outlook are those of the Skeptics. Because they denied the possibility of certainty, Skeptics could denounce traditional truths as unjustifiable opinions. When Demosthenes (c.371-322 BC), for example, observes that "What he wished to believe, that is what each man believes" (Olynthiac), he posits the relational nature of knowledge. Extreme skepticism, then, is linked to epistemological nihilism which denies the possibility of knowledge and truth; this form of nihilism is currently identified with postmodern antifoundationalism. Nihilism, in fact, can be understood in several different ways. Political Nihilism, as noted, is associated with the belief that the destruction of all existing political, social, and religious order is a prerequisite for any future improvement. Ethical nihilism or moral nihilism rejects the possibility of absolute moral or ethical values. Instead, good and evil are nebulous, and values addressing such are the product of nothing more than social and emotive pressures. Existential nihilism is the notion that life has no intrinsic meaning or value, and it is, no doubt, the most commonly used and understood sense of the word today.

Max Stirner's (1806-1856) attacks on systematic philosophy, his denial of absolutes, and his rejection of abstract concepts of any kind often places him among the first philosophical nihilists. For Stirner, achieving individual freedom is the only law; and the state, which necessarily imperils freedom, must be destroyed. Even beyond the oppression of the state, though, are the constraints imposed by others because their very existence is an obstacle compromising individual freedom. Thus Stirner argues that existence is an endless "war of each against all" (The Ego and its Own, trans. 1907).

Among philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche is most often associated with nihilism. For Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the world except what we give it. Penetrating the faades buttressing convictions, the nihilist discovers that all values are baseless and that reason is impotent. "Every belief, every considering something-true," Nietzsche writes, "is necessarily false because there is simply no true world" (Will to Power [notes from 1883-1888]). For him, nihilism requires a radical repudiation of all imposed values and meaning: "Nihilism is . . . not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's shoulder to the plough; one destroys" (Will to Power).

The caustic strength of nihilism is absolute, Nietzsche argues, and under its withering scrutiny "the highest values devalue themselves. The aim is lacking, and 'Why' finds no answer" (Will to Power). Inevitably, nihilism will expose all cherished beliefs and sacrosanct truths as symptoms of a defective Western mythos. This collapse of meaning, relevance, and purpose will be the most destructive force in history, constituting a total assault on reality and nothing less than the greatest crisis of humanity:

What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. . . . For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end. . . . (Will to Power)

Since Nietzsche's compelling critique, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Convinced that Nietzsche's analysis was accurate, for example, Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West (1926) studied several cultures to confirm that patterns of nihilism were indeed a conspicuous feature of collapsing civilizations. In each of the failed cultures he examines, Spengler noticed that centuries-old religious, artistic, and political traditions were weakened and finally toppled by the insidious workings of several distinct nihilistic postures: the Faustian nihilist "shatters the ideals"; the Apollinian nihilist "watches them crumble before his eyes"; and the Indian nihilist "withdraws from their presence into himself." Withdrawal, for instance, often identified with the negation of reality and resignation advocated by Eastern religions, is in the West associated with various versions of epicureanism and stoicism. In his study, Spengler concludes that Western civilization is already in the advanced stages of decay with all three forms of nihilism working to undermine epistemological authority and ontological grounding.

In 1927, Martin Heidegger, to cite another example, observed that nihilism in various and hidden forms was already "the normal state of man" (The Question of Being). Other philosophers' predictions about nihilism's impact have been dire. Outlining the symptoms of nihilism in the 20th century, Helmut Thielicke wrote that "Nihilism literally has only one truth to declare, namely, that ultimately Nothingness prevails and the world is meaningless" (Nihilism: Its Origin and Nature, with a Christian Answer, 1969). From the nihilist's perspective, one can conclude that life is completely amoral, a conclusion, Thielicke believes, that motivates such monstrosities as the Nazi reign of terror. Gloomy predictions of nihilism's impact are also charted in Eugene Rose's Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age (1994). If nihilism proves victorious--and it's well on its way, he argues--our world will become "a cold, inhuman world" where "nothingness, incoherence, and absurdity" will triumph.

While nihilism is often discussed in terms of extreme skepticism and relativism, for most of the 20th century it has been associated with the belief that life is meaningless. Existential nihilism begins with the notion that the world is without meaning or purpose. Given this circumstance, existence itself--all action, suffering, and feeling--is ultimately senseless and empty.

In The Dark Side: Thoughts on the Futility of Life (1994), Alan Pratt demonstrates that existential nihilism, in one form or another, has been a part of the Western intellectual tradition from the beginning. The Skeptic Empedocles' observation that "the life of mortals is so mean a thing as to be virtually un-life," for instance, embodies the same kind of extreme pessimism associated with existential nihilism. In antiquity, such profound pessimism may have reached its apex with Hegesis. Because miseries vastly outnumber pleasures, happiness is impossible, the philosopher argues, and subsequently advocates suicide. Centuries later during the Renaissance, William Shakespeare eloquently summarized the existential nihilist's perspective when, in this famous passage near the end of Macbeth, he has Macbeth pour out his disgust for life:

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

In the twentieth century, it's the atheistic existentialist movement, popularized in France in the 1940s and 50s, that is responsible for the currency of existential nihilism in the popular consciousness. Jean-Paul Sartre's (1905-1980) defining preposition for the movement, "existence precedes essence," rules out any ground or foundation for establishing an essential self or a human nature. When we abandon illusions, life is revealed as nothing; and for the existentialists, nothingness is the source of not only absolute freedom but also existential horror and emotional anguish. Nothingness reveals each individual as an isolated being "thrown" into an alien and unresponsive universe, barred forever from knowing why yet required to invent meaning. It's a situation that's nothing short of absurd. Writing from the enlightened perspective of the absurd, Albert Camus (1913-1960) observed that Sisyphus' plight, condemned to eternal, useless struggle, was a superb metaphor for human existence (The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942).

The common thread in the literature of the existentialists is coping with the emotional anguish arising from our confrontation with nothingness, and they expended great energy responding to the question of whether surviving it was possible. Their answer was a qualified "Yes," advocating a formula of passionate commitment and impassive stoicism. In retrospect, it was an anecdote tinged with desperation because in an absurd world there are absolutely no guidelines, and any course of action is problematic. Passionate commitment, be it to conquest, creation, or whatever, is itself meaningless. Enter nihilism.

Camus, like the other existentialists, was convinced that nihilism was the most vexing problem of the twentieth century. Although he argues passionately that individuals could endure its corrosive effects, his most famous works betray the extraordinary difficulty he faced building a convincing case. In The Stranger (1942), for example, Meursault has rejected the existential suppositions on which the uninitiated and weak rely. Just moments before his execution for a gratuitous murder, he discovers that life alone is reason enough for living, a raison d'tre, however, that in context seems scarcely convincing. In Caligula (1944), the mad emperor tries to escape the human predicament by dehumanizing himself with acts of senseless violence, fails, and surreptitiously arranges his own assassination. The Plague (1947) shows the futility of doing one's best in an absurd world. And in his last novel, the short and sardonic, The Fall (1956), Camus posits that everyone has bloody hands because we are all responsible for making a sorry state worse by our inane action and inaction alike. In these works and other works by the existentialists, one is often left with the impression that living authentically with the meaninglessness of life is impossible.

Camus was fully aware of the pitfalls of defining existence without meaning, and in his philosophical essay The Rebel (1951) he faces the problem of nihilism head-on. In it, he describes at length how metaphysical collapse often ends in total negation and the victory of nihilism, characterized by profound hatred, pathological destruction, and incalculable violence and death.

By the late 20th century, "nihilism" had assumed two different castes. In one form, "nihilist" is used to characterize the postmodern person, a dehumanized conformist, alienated, indifferent, and baffled, directing psychological energy into hedonistic narcissism or into a deep ressentiment that often explodes in violence. This perspective is derived from the existentialists' reflections on nihilism stripped of any hopeful expectations, leaving only the experience of sickness, decay, and disintegration.

In his study of meaninglessness, Donald Crosby writes that the source of modern nihilism paradoxically stems from a commitment to honest intellectual openness. "Once set in motion, the process of questioning could come to but one end, the erosion of conviction and certitude and collapse into despair" (The Specter of the Absurd, 1988). When sincere inquiry is extended to moral convictions and social consensus, it can prove deadly, Crosby continues, promoting forces that ultimately destroy civilizations. Michael Novak's recently revised The Experience of Nothingness (1968, 1998) tells a similar story. Both studies are responses to the existentialists' gloomy findings from earlier in the century. And both optimistically discuss ways out of the abyss by focusing of the positive implications nothingness reveals, such as liberty, freedom, and creative possibilities. Novak, for example, describes how since WWII we have been working to "climb out of nihilism" on the way to building a new civilization.

In contrast to the efforts to overcome nihilism noted above is the uniquely postmodern response associated with the current antifoundationalists. The philosophical, ethical, and intellectual crisis of nihilism that has tormented modern philosophers for over a century has given way to mild annoyance or, more interestingly, an upbeat acceptance of meaninglessness.

French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard characterizes postmodernism as an "incredulity toward metanarratives," those all-embracing foundations that we have relied on to make sense of the world. This extreme skepticism has undermined intellectual and moral hierarchies and made "truth" claims, transcendental or transcultural, problematic. Postmodern antifoundationalists, paradoxically grounded in relativism, dismiss knowledge as relational and "truth" as transitory, genuine only until something more palatable replaces it (reminiscent of William James' notion of "cash value"). The critic Jacques Derrida, for example, asserts that one can never be sure that what one knows corresponds with what is. Since human beings participate in only an infinitesimal part of the whole, they are unable to grasp anything with certainty, and absolutes are merely "fictional forms."

American antifoundationalist Richard Rorty makes a similar point: "Nothing grounds our practices, nothing legitimizes them, nothing shows them to be in touch with the way things are" ("From Logic to Language to Play," 1986). This epistemological cul-de-sac, Rorty concludes, leads inevitably to nihilism. "Faced with the nonhuman, the nonlinguistic, we no longer have the ability to overcome contingency and pain by appropriation and transformation, but only the ability to recognize contingency and pain" (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, 1989). In contrast to Nietzsche's fears and the angst of the existentialists, nihilism becomes for the antifoundationalists just another aspect of our contemporary milieu, one best endured with sang-froid.

In The Banalization of Nihilism (1992) Karen Carr discusses the antifoundationalist response to nihilism. Although it still inflames a paralyzing relativism and subverts critical tools, "cheerful nihilism" carries the day, she notes, distinguished by an easy-going acceptance of meaninglessness. Such a development, Carr concludes, is alarming. If we accept that all perspectives are equally non-binding, then intellectual or moral arrogance will determine which perspective has precedence. Worse still, the banalization of nihilism creates an environment where ideas can be imposed forcibly with little resistance, raw power alone determining intellectual and moral hierarchies. It's a conclusion that dovetails nicely with Nietzsche's, who pointed out that all interpretations of the world are simply manifestations of will-to-power.

It has been over a century now since Nietzsche explored nihilism and its implications for civilization. As he predicted, nihilism's impact on the culture and values of the 20th century has been pervasive, its apocalyptic tenor spawning a mood of gloom and a good deal of anxiety, anger, and terror. Interestingly, Nietzsche himself, a radical skeptic preoccupied with language, knowledge, and truth, anticipated many of the themes of postmodernity. It's helpful to note, then, that he believed we could--at a terrible price--eventually work through nihilism. If we survived the process of destroying all interpretations of the world, we could then perhaps discover the correct course for humankind:

I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength. It is possible. . . . (Complete Works Vol. 13)

Alan Pratt Email: pratta@db.erau.edu Embry-Riddle University U. S. A.

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Nihilism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

This classic is the benchmark against which all modern books about Nietzsche are measured. When Walter Kaufmann wrote it in the immediate aftermath of World War II, most scholars outside Germany viewed Nietzsche as part madman, part proto-Nazi, and almost wholly unphilosophical. Kaufmann rehabilitated Nietzsche nearly single-handedly, presenting his works as one of the great achievements of Western philosophy.

Responding to the powerful myths and countermyths that had sprung up around Nietzsche, Kaufmann offered a patient, evenhanded account of his life and works, and of the uses and abuses to which subsequent generations had put his ideas. Without ignoring or downplaying the ugliness of many of Nietzsche's proclamations, he set them in the context of his work as a whole and of the counterexamples yielded by a responsible reading of his books. More positively, he presented Nietzsche's ideas about power as one of the great accomplishments of modern philosophy, arguing that his conception of the "will to power" was not a crude apology for ruthless self-assertion but must be linked to Nietzsche's equally profound ideas about sublimation. He also presented Nietzsche as a pioneer of modern psychology and argued that a key to understanding his overall philosophy is to see it as a reaction against Christianity.

Many scholars in the past half century have taken issue with some of Kaufmann's interpretations, but the book ranks as one of the most influential accounts ever written of any major Western thinker. Featuring a new foreword by Alexander Nehamas, this Princeton Classics edition of Nietzsche introduces a new generation of readers to one the most influential accounts ever written of any major Western thinker.

Read more from the original source:
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist ...

Nihilism ( or ; from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a philosophical doctrine that suggests the lack of belief in one or more reputedly meaningful aspects of life. The Greek philosopher and Sophist, Gorgias (ca. 485 BC380 BC), is perhaps the first to consider the Nihilistic belief. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.[1]Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism can also take epistemological or ontological/metaphysical forms, meaning respectively that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible, or that reality does not actually exist.

The term is sometimes used in association with anomie to explain the general mood of despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence that one may develop upon realising there are no necessary norms, rules, or laws.[2] Movements such as Futurism and deconstruction,[3] among others, have been identified by commentators as "nihilistic" at various times[when?] in various contexts[which?].

Nihilism is also a characteristic that has been ascribed to time periods: for example, Jean Baudrillard and others have called postmodernity a nihilistic epoch,[4] and some Christian theologians and figures of religious authority have asserted that postmodernity[5] and many aspects of modernity[3] represent a rejection of theism, and that such rejection of their theistic doctrine entails nihilism.

Nihilism has many definitions, and thus can describe philosophical positions that are arguably independent.

Metaphysical nihilism is the philosophical theory that there might be no objects at allthat is, that there is a possible world where there are no objects at allor at least that there might be no concrete objects at allso that even if every possible world contains some objects, there is at least one that contains only abstract objects.

An extreme form of metaphysical nihilism is commonly defined as the belief that nothing exists as a correspondent component of the self-efficient world.[6] The American Heritage Medical Dictionary defines one form of nihilism as "an extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence."[7] One way of interpreting such a statement is as follows: it is impossible to distinguish "existence" from "non-existence" as there are no objective qualities, and thus a reality, that one state could possess in order to discern between the two. If one cannot discern existence from its negation, then the concept of existence has no meaning, or, in other words, does not "exist" in any meaningful way. "Meaning" in this sense is used to argue that since existence has no higher state of reality, which is arguably its necessary and defining quality, existence itself means nothing. It could be argued that this belief, once combined with epistemological nihilism, leaves one with an all-encompassing nihilism in which nothing can be said to be real or true as such values do not exist. A similar position can be found in solipsism; however, in this viewpoint the solipsist affirms whereas the nihilist would deny the self. Both these positions are forms of anti-realism.[citation needed]

Nihilism of an epistemological form can be seen as an extreme form of skepticism in which all knowledge is denied.[8]

Mereological nihilism (also called compositional nihilism) is the position that objects with proper parts do not exist (not only objects in space, but also objects existing in time do not have any temporal parts), and only basic building blocks without parts exist, and thus the world we see and experience full of objects with parts is a product of human misperception (i.e., if we could see clearly, we would not perceive compositive objects).

This interpretation of existence must be based on resolution. The resolution with which humans see and perceive the "improper parts" of the world is not an objective fact of reality, but is rather an implicit trait that can only be qualitatively explored and expressed. Therefore, there is no arguable way to surmise or measure the validity of mereological nihilism. Example: An ant can get lost on a large cylindrical object because the circumference of the object is so large with respect to the ant that the ant effectively feels as though the object has no curvature. Thus, the resolution with which the ant views the world it exists "within" is a very important determining factor in how the ant experiences this "within the world" feeling. We humans once believed the world was likely flat and planar.

Existential nihilism is the belief that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existential nihilism posits that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. The meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism.

Moral nihilism, also known as ethical nihilism, is the meta-ethical view that morality does not exist as something inherent to objective reality; therefore no action is necessarily preferable to any other. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is not inherently right or wrong.

Other nihilists may argue not that there is no morality at all, but that if it does exist, it is a human construction and thus artificial, wherein any and all meaning is relative for different possible outcomes. As an example, if someone kills someone else, such a nihilist might argue that killing is not inherently a bad thing, or bad independently from our moral beliefs, because of the way morality is constructed as some rudimentary dichotomy. What is said to be a bad thing is given a higher negative weighting than what is called good: as a result, killing the individual was bad because it did not let the individual live, which was arbitrarily given a positive weighting. In this way a moral nihilist believes that all moral claims are void of any truth value. An alternative scholarly perspective is that moral nihilism is a morality in itself. Cooper writes, "In the widest sense of the word 'morality', moral nihilism is a morality."[9]

Political nihilism, a branch of nihilism, follows the characteristic nihilist's rejection of non-rationalized or non-proven assertions; in this case the necessity of the most fundamental social and political structures, such as government, family, and law. An influential analysis of political nihilism is presented by Leo Strauss.[10]

The Russian Nihilist movement was a Russian trend in the 1860s that rejected all authority.[11] Their name derives from the Latin nihil, meaning "nothing". After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the Nihilists gained a reputation throughout Europe as proponents of the use of violence for political change.[citation needed] The Nihilists expressed anger at what they described as the abusive nature of the Eastern Orthodox Church and of the tsarist monarchy, and at the domination of the Russian economy by the aristocracy. Although the term Nihilist was first popularised by the German theologian Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1818), its widespread usage began with the 1862 novel Fathers and Sons by the Russian author Ivan Turgenev. The main character of the novel, Eugene Bazarov, who describes himself as a Nihilist, wants to educate the people. The "go to the people be the people" campaign reached its height in the 1870s, during which underground groups such as the Circle of Tchaikovsky, the People's Will, and Land and Liberty formed. It became known as the Narodnik movement, whose members believed that the newly-freed serfs were merely being sold into wage slavery in the onset of the Industrial Revolution, and that the middle and upper classes had effectively replaced landowners. The Russian state attempted to suppress them[who?]. In actions described by the Nihilists as propaganda of the deed many government officials were assassinated. In 1881 Alexander II was killed on the very day he had approved a proposal to call a representative assembly to consider new reforms.

The term nihilism was first used by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (17431819). Jacobi used the term to characterize rationalism[12] and in particular Immanuel Kant's "critical" philosophy to carry out a reductio ad absurdum according to which all rationalism (philosophy as criticism) reduces to nihilismand thus it should be avoided and replaced with a return to some type of faith and revelation. Bret W. Davis writes, for example, "The first philosophical development of the idea of nihilism is generally ascribed to Friedrich Jacobi, who in a famous letter criticized Fichte's idealism as falling into nihilism. According to Jacobi, Fichtes absolutization of the ego (the 'absolute I' that posits the 'not-I') is an inflation of subjectivity that denies the absolute transcendence of God."[13] A related but oppositional concept is fideism, which sees reason as hostile and inferior to faith.

With the popularizing of the word nihilism by Ivan Turgenev, a new Russian political movement called the Nihilist movement adopted the term. They supposedly called themselves nihilists because nothing "that then existed found favor in their eyes".[14]

Sren Kierkegaard (18131855) posited an early form of nihilism, to which he referred as levelling.[15] He saw levelling as the process of suppressing individuality to a point where the individual's uniqueness becomes non-existent and nothing meaningful in his existence can be affirmed:

Levelling at its maximum is like the stillness of death, where one can hear one's own heartbeat, a stillness like death, into which nothing can penetrate, in which everything sinks, powerless. One person can head a rebellion, but one person cannot head this levelling process, for that would make him a leader and he would avoid being levelled. Each individual can in his little circle participate in this levelling, but it is an abstract process, and levelling is abstraction conquering individuality.

Kierkegaard, an advocate of a philosophy of life, generally argued against levelling and its nihilist consequence, although he believed it would be "genuinely educative to live in the age of levelling [because] people will be forced to face the judgement of [levelling] alone."[16] George Cotkin asserts Kierkegaard was against "the standardization and levelling of belief, both spiritual and political, in the nineteenth century [and he] opposed tendencies in mass culture to reduce the individual to a cipher of conformity and deference to the dominant opinion."[17] In his day, tabloids (like the Danish magazine Corsaren) and apostate Christianity were instruments of levelling and contributed to the "reflective apathetic age" of 19th century Europe.[18] Kierkegaard argues that individuals who can overcome the levelling process are stronger for it and that it represents a step in the right direction towards "becoming a true self."[16][19] As we must overcome levelling,[20]Hubert Dreyfus and Jane Rubin argue that Kierkegaard's interest, "in an increasingly nihilistic age, is in how we can recover the sense that our lives are meaningful".[21]

Note however that Kierkegaard's meaning of "nihilism" differs from the modern definition in the sense that, for Kierkegaard, levelling led to a life lacking meaning, purpose or value,[18] whereas the modern interpretation of nihilism posits that there was never any meaning, purpose or value to begin with.

Nihilism is often associated with the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who provided a detailed diagnosis of nihilism as a widespread phenomenon of Western culture. Though the notion appears frequently throughout Nietzsche's work, he uses the term in a variety of ways, with different meanings and connotations, all negative[citation needed]. Karen Carr describes Nietzsche's characterization of nihilism "as a condition of tension, as a disproportion between what we want to value (or need) and how the world appears to operate."[22] When we find out that the world does not possess the objective value or meaning that we want it to have or have long since believed it to have, we find ourselves in a crisis.[23] Nietzsche asserts that with the decline of Christianity and the rise of physiological decadence, nihilism is in fact characteristic of the modern age,[24] though he implies that the rise of nihilism is still incomplete and that it has yet to be overcome.[25] Though the problem of nihilism becomes especially explicit in Nietzsche's notebooks (published posthumously), it is mentioned repeatedly in his published works and is closely connected to many of the problems mentioned there.

Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. This observation stems in part from Nietzsche's perspectivism, or his notion that "knowledge" is always by someone of some thing: it is always bound by perspective, and it is never mere fact.[26] Rather, there are interpretations through which we understand the world and give it meaning. Interpreting is something we can not go without; in fact, it is something we need. One way of interpreting the world is through morality, as one of the fundamental ways that people make sense of the world, especially in regard to their own thoughts and actions. Nietzsche distinguishes a morality that is strong or healthy, meaning that the person in question is aware that he constructs it himself, from weak morality, where the interpretation is projected on to something external. Regardless of its strength, morality presents us with meaning, whether this is created or 'implanted,' which helps us get through life.[27]

Nietzsche discusses Christianity, one of the major topics in his work, at length in the context of the problem of nihilism in his notebooks, in a chapter entitled "European Nihilism".[28] Here he states that the Christian moral doctrine provides people with intrinsic value, belief in God (which justifies the evil in the world) and a basis for objective knowledge. In this sense, in constructing a world where objective knowledge is possible, Christianity is an antidote against a primal form of nihilism, against the despair of meaninglessness. However, it is exactly the element of truthfulness in Christian doctrine that is its undoing: in its drive towards truth, Christianity eventually finds itself to be a construct, which leads to its own dissolution. It is therefore that Nietzsche states that we have outgrown Christianity "not because we lived too far from it, rather because we lived too close".[29] As such, the self-dissolution of Christianity constitutes yet another form of nihilism. Because Christianity was an interpretation that posited itself as the interpretation, Nietzsche states that this dissolution leads beyond skepticism to a distrust of all meaning.[30][31]

Stanley Rosen identifies Nietzsche's concept of nihilism with a situation of meaninglessness, in which "everything is permitted." According to him, the loss of higher metaphysical values that exist in contrast to the base reality of the world, or merely human ideas, give rise to the idea that all human ideas are therefore valueless. Rejecting idealism thus results in nihilism, because only similarly transcendent ideals live up to the previous standards that the nihilist still implicitly holds.[32] The inability for Christianity to serve as a source of valuating the world is reflected in Nietzsche's famous aphorism of the madman in The Gay Science.[33] The death of God, in particular the statement that "we killed him", is similar to the self-dissolution of Christian doctrine: due to the advances of the sciences, which for Nietzsche show that man is the product of evolution, that Earth has no special place among the stars and that history is not progressive, the Christian notion of God can no longer serve as a basis for a morality.

One such reaction to the loss of meaning is what Nietzsche calls passive nihilism, which he recognises in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's doctrine, which Nietzsche also refers to as Western Buddhism, advocates a separating of oneself from will and desires in order to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterises this ascetic attitude as a "will to nothingness", whereby life turns away from itself, as there is nothing of value to be found in the world. This mowing away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although in this, the nihilist appears inconsistent:[34]

A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: the pathos of 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.

Nietzsche's relation to the problem of nihilism is a complex one. He approaches the problem of nihilism as deeply personal, stating that this predicament of the modern world is a problem that has "become conscious" in him.[35] Furthermore, he emphasises both the danger of nihilism and the possibilities it offers, as seen in his statement that "I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!"[36] According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure.[24]

He states that there is at least the possibility of another type of nihilist in the wake of Christianity's self-dissolution, one that does not stop after the destruction of all value and meaning and succumb to the following nothingness. This alternate, 'active' nihilism on the other hand destroys to level the field for constructing something new. This form of nihilism is characterized by Nietzsche as "a sign of strength,"[37] a wilful destruction of the old values to wipe the slate clean and lay down one's own beliefs and interpretations, contrary to the passive nihilism that resigns itself with the decomposition of the old values. This wilful destruction of values and the overcoming of the condition of nihilism by the constructing of new meaning, this active nihilism, could be related to what Nietzsche elsewhere calls a 'free spirit'[38] or the bermensch from Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Antichrist, the model of the strong individual who posits his own values and lives his life as if it were his own work of art. It may be questioned, though, whether "active nihilism" is indeed the correct term for this stance, and some question whether Nietzsche takes the problems nihilism poses seriously enough.[39]

Martin Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche influenced many postmodern thinkers who investigated the problem of nihilism as put forward by Nietzsche. Only recently has Heidegger's influence on Nietzschean nihilism research faded.[40] As early as the 1930s, Heidegger was giving lectures on Nietzsches thought.[41] Given the importance of Nietzsches contribution to the topic of nihilism, Heidegger's influential interpretation of Nietzsche is important for the historical development of the term nihilism.

Heidegger's method of researching and teaching Nietzsche is explicitly his own. He does not specifically try to present Nietzsche as Nietzsche. He rather tries to incorporate Nietzsche's thoughts into his own philosophical system of Being, Time and Dasein.[42] In his Nihilism as Determined by the History of Being (194446),[43] Heidegger tries to understand Nietzsches nihilism as trying to achieve a victory through the devaluation of the, until then, highest values. The principle of this devaluation is, according to Heidegger, the Will to Power. The Will to Power is also the principle of every earlier valuation of values.[44] How does this devaluation occur and why is this nihilistic? One of Heidegger's main critiques on philosophy is that philosophy, and more specifically metaphysics, has forgotten to discriminate between investigating the notion of a Being (Seiende) and Being (Sein). According to Heidegger, the history of Western thought can be seen as the history of metaphysics. And because metaphysics has forgotten to ask about the notion of Being (what Heidegger calls Seinsvergessenheit), it is a history about the destruction of Being. That is why Heidegger calls metaphysics nihilistic.[45] This makes Nietzsches metaphysics not a victory over nihilism, but a perfection of it.[46]

Heidegger, in his interpretation of Nietzsche, has been inspired by Ernst Jnger. Many references to Jnger can be found in Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche. For example, in a letter to the rector of Freiburg University of November 4, 1945, Heidegger, inspired by Jnger, tries to explain the notion of God is dead as the reality of the Will to Power. Heidegger also praises Jnger for defending Nietzsche against a too biological or anthropological reading during the Third Reich.[47]

Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche influenced a number of important postmodernist thinkers. Gianni Vattimo points at a back-and-forth movement in European thought, between Nietzsche and Heidegger. During the 1960s, a Nietzschean 'renaissance' began, culminating in the work of Mazzino Montinari and Giorgio Colli. They began work on a new and complete edition of Nietzsche's collected works, making Nietzsche more accessible for scholarly research. Vattimo explains that with this new edition of Colli and Montinari, a critical reception of Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche began to take shape. Like other contemporary French and Italian philosophers, Vattimo does not want, or only partially wants, to rely on Heidegger for understanding Nietzsche. On the other hand, Vattimo judges Heidegger's intentions authentic enough to keep pursuing them.[48] Philosophers who Vattimo exemplifies as a part of this back and forth movement are French philosophers Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida. Italian philosophers of this same movement are Cacciari, Severino and himself.[49]Habermas, Lyotard and Rorty are also philosophers who are influenced by Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche.[50]

Postmodern and poststructuralist thought question the very grounds on which Western cultures have based their 'truths': absolute knowledge and meaning, a 'decentralization' of authorship, the accumulation of positive knowledge, historical progress, and certain ideals and practices of humanism and the Enlightenment.

Jacques Derrida, whose deconstruction is perhaps most commonly labeled nihilistic, did not himself make the nihilistic move that others have claimed. Derridean deconstructionists argue that this approach rather frees texts, individuals or organizations from a restrictive truth, and that deconstruction opens up the possibility of other ways of being.[51]Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, for example, uses deconstruction to create an ethics of opening up Western scholarship to the voice of the subaltern and to philosophies outside of the canon of western texts.[52] Derrida himself built a philosophy based upon a 'responsibility to the other'.[53] Deconstruction can thus be seen not as a denial of truth, but as a denial of our ability to know truth (it makes an epistemological claim compared to nihilism's ontological claim).

Lyotard argues that, rather than relying on an objective truth or method to prove their claims, philosophers legitimize their truths by reference to a story about the world that can't be separated from the age and system the stories belong toreferred to by Lyotard as meta-narratives. He then goes on to define the postmodern condition as characterized by a rejection both of these meta-narratives and of the process of legitimation by meta-narratives. "In lieu of meta-narratives we have created new language-games in order to legitimize our claims which rely on changing relationships and mutable truths, none of which is privileged over the other to speak to ultimate truth."[citation needed] This concept of the instability of truth and meaning leads in the direction of nihilism, though Lyotard stops short of embracing the latter.

Postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote briefly of nihilism from the postmodern viewpoint in Simulacra and Simulation. He stuck mainly to topics of interpretations of the real world over the simulations of which the real world is composed. The uses of meaning was an important subject in Baudrillard's discussion of nihilism:

The apocalypse is finished, today it is the precession of the neutral, of forms of the neutral and of indifferenceall that remains, is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us. Now, fascination (in contrast to seduction, which was attached to appearances, and to dialectical reason, which was attached to meaning) is a nihilistic passion par excellence, it is the passion proper to the mode of disappearance. We are fascinated by all forms of disappearance, of our disappearance. Melancholic and fascinated, such is our general situation in an era of involuntary transparency.

In Nihil Unbound: Extinction and Enlightenment, Ray Brassier maintains that philosophy has avoided the traumatic idea of extinction, instead attempting to find meaning in a world conditioned by the very idea of its own annihilation. Thus Brassier critiques both the phenomenological and hermeneutic strands of Continental philosophy as well as the vitality of thinkers like Gilles Deleuze, who work to ingrain meaning in the world and stave off the threat of nihilism. Instead, drawing on thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Franois Laruelle, Paul Churchland, and Thomas Metzinger, Brassier defends a view of the world as inherently devoid of meaning. That is, rather than avoiding nihilism, Brassier embraces it as the truth of reality. Brassier concludes from his readings of Badiou and Laruelle that the universe is founded on the nothing,[54] but also that philosophy is the "organon of extinction," that it is only because life is conditioned by its own extinction that there is thought at all.[55] Brassier then defends a radically anti-correlationist philosophy proposing that Thought is conjoined not with Being, but with Non-Being.

The term Dada was first used by Richard Huelsenbeck and Tristan Tzara in 1916.[56] The movement, which lasted from approximately 1916 to 1922, arose during World War I, an event that influenced the artists.[57] The Dada Movement began in Zrich, Switzerland known as the "Niederdorf" or "Niederdrfli" in the Caf Voltaire.[58] The Dadaists claimed that Dada was not an art movement, but an anti-art movement, sometimes using found objects in a manner similar to found poetry. The "anti-art" drive is thought to have stemmed from a post-war emptiness. This tendency toward devaluation of art has led many to claim that Dada was an essentially nihilistic movement. Given that Dada created its own means for interpreting its products, it is difficult to classify alongside most other contemporary art expressions. Hence, due to its ambiguity, it is sometimes classified as a nihilistic modus vivendi.[57]

The term "nihilism" was actually popularized by Ivan Turgenev in his novel Fathers and Sons, whose hero, Bazarov, was a nihilist and recruited several followers to the philosophy. He found his nihilistic ways challenged upon falling in love.[59]

Anton Chekhov portrayed nihilism when writing Three Sisters. The phrase "what does it matter" or such variants is often spoken by several characters in response to events; the significance of some of these events suggests a subscription to nihilism by said characters as a type of coping strategy.

Ayn Rand vehemently denounced nihilism as an abdication of rationality and the pursuit of happiness which she regarded as life's moral purpose. As such, most villains are depicted as moral nihilists including Ellsworth Monckton Toohey in The Fountainhead who is a self-aware nihilist and the corrupt government in Atlas Shrugged who are unconsciously driven by nihilism which has taken root in the books depiction of American society with the fictional slang phrase "Who is John Galt?" being used as a defeatist way of saying "Who knows?" or "What does it matter?" by characters in the book who have essentially given up on life.[citation needed]

The philosophical ideas of the French author, the Marquis de Sade, are often noted as early examples of nihilistic principles.[citation needed]

In Act III of Shostakovich's opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District", a nihilist is tormented by the Russian police.[citation needed]

A 2007 article in The Guardian noted that "...in the summer of 1977, ...punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England."[60] The Sex Pistols' God Save The Queen, with its chant-like refrain of "no future", became a slogan for unemployed and disaffected youth during the late 1970s. Their song Pretty Vacant is also a prime example of the band's nihilistic outlook. Other influential punk rock and proto-punk bands to adopt nihilistic themes include The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, Misfits, Ramones, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Suicide and Black Flag.[61]

Industrial, Black metal, death metal, and doom metal music often emphasize nihilistic themes. Explorers of nihilistic themes in heavy metal include Black Sabbath, Metallica, Slayer, KMFDM, Opeth, Alice in Chains, Godflesh, Celtic Frost, Ministry, Autopsy, Dismember, Motrhead, Bathory, Darkthrone, Emperor, Tool, Meshuggah, Candlemass, Morbid Saint, Kreator, Morbid Angel, Sepultura, Exodus, Entombed, Death, Mayhem, Nevermore, Dark Angel, Dissection, Nihilist, Weakling, Obituary, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Pantera, Sleep, Xasthur, and At the Gates.[62][63][64]

In 2014 is composed the first opera (Demandolx) carrying the expression of "Nihilist Opera", using classical, modern and electronic instruments and following some drastic different rules, musically and theoretically.

Three of the antagonists in the 1998 movie The Big Lebowski are explicitly described as "nihilists," but are not shown exhibiting any explicitly nihilistic traits during the film. Regarding the nihilists, the character Walter Sobchak comments "Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." [65] The 1999 film The Matrix portrays the character Thomas A. Anderson with a hollowed out copy of Baudrillard's treatise, Simulacra and Simulation, in which he stores contraband data files under the chapter "On Nihilism." The main antagonist Agent Smith is also depicted frequently as a nihilist, with him ranting about how all of peace, justice and love were meaningless in The Matrix Revolutions.[66] The 1999 film Fight Club also features concepts relating to Nihilism by exploring the contrasts between the artificial values imposed by consumerism in relation to the more meaningful pursuit of spiritual happiness.

In keeping with his comic book depiction, The Joker is portrayed as a nihilist in The Dark Knight, describing himself as "an Agent of Chaos" and at one point burning a gigantic pile of money stating that crime is "not about money, it's about sending a message: everything burns." Alfred Pennyworth states, regarding the Joker, "Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money - they can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with - some men just want to watch the world burn."[67]

The character from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords, a dark lord named Darth Nihilus was a reference to the Nihilism ideology as he devoured entire planets and did not care for living things at all.[citation needed]

Although the character Barthandelus from Final Fantasy XIII is not referred to as nihilistic in the game itself, he is referred to as such in the Fighting Fate entry for Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.[68]

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