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{{Short description|German philosopher (1844–1900)}}
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| caption = Nietzsche in Basel, Switzerland, {{circa}} 1875
| birth_name = {{nowrap|Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche}}
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1844|10|15}}
| birth_place = ], Province of Saxony<!-- DO NOT LINK, see ] for further guidance -->, Prussia<!-- DO NOT LINK, see ] for further guidance -->, German Confederation<!-- DO NOT LINK, see ] for further guidance -->
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1900|08|25|1844|10|15}}
| death_place = ], Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach<!-- DO NOT LINK, see ] for further guidance -->, German Empire<!-- DO NOT LINK, see ] for further guidance -->
| resting_place = Röcken Churchyard
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| ] {{small|(disputed){{efn-lr|See, for example: {{bulleted list|"Some interpreters of Nietzsche believe he embraced nihilism, rejected philosophical reasoning, and promoted a literary exploration of the human condition, while not being concerned with gaining truth and knowledge in the traditional sense of those terms. However, other interpreters of Nietzsche say that in attempting to counteract the predicted rise of nihilism, he was engaged in a positive program to reaffirm life, and so he called for a radical, naturalistic rethinking of the nature of human existence, knowledge, and morality."<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |encyclopedia=] |url=https://www.iep.utm.edu/nietzsch/ |last=Wilkerson |first=Dale |issn=2161-0002}}.</ref>|"Nietzsche's increasing determination, however, in his later writings, to avoid philosophical nihilisms of every variety, leads him to wonder whether it might not be possible to achieve an understanding of what fuels the foregoing dialectic of a sort that would allow one to head in an altogether different philosophical direction."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Conant |first=James F. |author-link=James F. Conant |year=2005 |title=The Dialectic of Perspectivism, I |url=http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/conant/The%20Dialectic%20of%20Perspectivism,%20I%20final%20version.pdf |journal=] |publisher=Philosophia Press |volume=6 |pages=5–50 One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too https://everydayshayari.com/emotional-quotes-to-make-you-stronger/ |number=2}}</ref>}}}}}}
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| ]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brennan |first=Katie |year=2018 |title=The Wisdom of Silenus: Suffering in The Birth of Tragedy |journal=] |volume=49 |pages=174–193 |doi=10.5325/jnietstud.49.2.0174 |issn=0968-8005 |jstor=10.5325/jnietstud.49.2.0174 |s2cid=171652169 |number=2}}</ref>
| ]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dienstag |first=Joshua F. |year=2001 |title=Nietzsche's Dionysian Pessimism |journal=] |volume=95 |issue=4 |pages=923–937 |jstor=3117722}}</ref>
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| ] {{small|(disputed)<ref name="Perez2015">{{Cite journal |last=Perez |first=Rolando |year=2015 |title=Nietzsche's Reading of Cervantes' "Cruel" Humor in Don Quijote |url=https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume30/11%20ehum30.perez.pdf |journal=] |volume=30 |pages=168–175 |issn=1540-5877}}.</ref>}}
| ]<ref>Nietzsche self-describes his philosophy as immoralism, see also: {{Cite journal |last=Laing |first=Bertram M. |year=1915 |title=The Metaphysics of Nietzsche's Immoralism |journal=] |volume=24 |pages=386–418 |doi=10.2307/2178746 |jstor=2178746 |number=4}}</ref>
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| ]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schacht |first=Richard |year=2012 |title=Nietzsche's Naturalism |journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies |publisher=] |volume=43 |pages=185–212 |doi=10.5325/jnietstud.43.2.0185 |s2cid=169130060 |number=2}}</ref>
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| ]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Conway |first=Daniel |title=Nietzsche, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Science |publisher=Springer |year=1999 |isbn=978-90-481-5234-6 |editor-last=Babich |editor-first=Babette E. |editor-link=Babette Babich |series=Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science |volume=204 |location=Dordrecht |pages=109–122 |chapter=Beyond Truth and Appearance: Nietzsche's Emergent Realism |doi=10.1007/978-94-017-2428-9_9}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Doyle |first=Tsarina |title=Nietzsche on Epistemology and Metaphysics: The World in View |publisher=] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0748628070 |pages=81–103 |chapter=Nietzsche's Emerging Internal Realism |doi=10.3366/edinburgh/9780748628070.003.0003}}</ref>
| ]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kirkland |first=Paul E. |year=2010 |title=Nietzsche's Tragic Realism |journal=The Review of Politics |volume=72 |pages=55–78 |doi=10.1017/S0034670509990969 |jstor=25655890 |s2cid=154098512 |number=1}}</ref>
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'''Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche'''{{efn-lr|{{IPAc-en|ˈ|n|iː|tʃ|ə|,_|ˈ|n|iː|tʃ|i}} {{respell|NEE|chə|,_|NEE|chee}};<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Nietzsche |encyclopedia=Longman Pronunciation Dictionary |publisher=] |location=Harlow, UK |last=Wells |first=John C. |date=1990 |author-link=John C. Wells |page=478 |isbn=978-0-582-05383-0}}</ref> {{IPA|de|ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtʃə|lang|De-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.oga}} <small>or</small> {{IPA|de|ˈniːtsʃə|}};<ref>''] – Das Aussprachewörterbuch'' 7. Berlin: ]. 2015. {{ISBN|978-3-411-04067-4}}. p.&nbsp;633.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Krech |first1=Eva-Maria |url=https://archive.org/details/deutschesausspra00krec |title=Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch |last2=Stock |first2=Eberhard |last3=Hirschfeld |first3=Ursula |last4=Anders |first4=Lutz Christian |publisher=] |year=2009 |isbn=978-3-11-018202-6 |location=Berlin |pages=, 777 |language=de |trans-title=German Pronunciation Dictionary |url-access=limited}}</ref>}} (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German<!-- The question of whether to call Nietzsche "German" or not has been extensively debated over several years and the consensus is to call him German. Records of this are in the archived talk pages no. 10, 11, 12, 15. Please do not change this without gaining consensus on the talk page. --> ], ], and critic of ], who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Friedrich Nietzsche - German philosopher |encyclopedia=] |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Nietzsche |access-date=27 March 2023 |date=24 September 2023 |language=en}}</ref> He began his career as a ] before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the ] in Switzerland in 1869, at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with ] and probably ]. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897, and then with his sister ]. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing ] and multiple ]s.
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image_name = nietzsche.later.years.jpg‎ |


Nietzsche's work spans philosophical ]s, poetry, ]ism, and ] while displaying a fondness for ] and ]. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of ] in favour of ]; a ] ] and ] and a related theory of ]; the ] ] in response to both the "]" and the profound crisis of ]; the notion of ] forces; and a characterisation of the human ] as the expression of competing ], collectively understood as the ]. He also developed influential concepts such as the ''{{lang|de|]}}'' and his doctrine of ]. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of ] and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ], and drew inspiration from ] as well as figures such as ], ], ], ], ], and ].
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name = Friedrich Nietzsche |
After his death, Nietzsche's sister ] became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her ] ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly ]. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with ] and ]. 20th-century scholars such as ], ], and ] defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of ] such as ], ], and ]—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.
birth = ], ] (], ]n ]) |

death = ], ] (], ]) |
== Life ==
school_tradition = ], ]; Precursor to ], ], ], ]||

main_interests = ], ], ], ], ], ]
=== Youth (1844–1868) ===
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influences = ]<!-- PLEASE DON'T REMOVE DOSTOEVSKY - SEE TALK PAGE -->, ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ]
Born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Life Of Friedrich Nietzsche – YTread |url=https://youtuberead.com/the-life-of-friedrich-nietzsche |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230924033446/https://youtuberead.com/the-life-of-friedrich-nietzsche |archive-date=24 September 2023 |access-date=27 March 2023 |website=youtuberead.com |language=en}}</ref> grew up in the town of ] (now part of ]), near ], in the Prussian ]. He was named after King ], who turned 49 on the day of Nietzsche's birth (Nietzsche later dropped his middle name Wilhelm). Nietzsche's great-grandfather, {{ill|Gotthelf Engelbert Nietzsche|ja|ゴットヘルフ・エンゲルベルト・ニーチェ}} (1714–1804), was an inspector and a philosopher. Nietzsche's grandfather, {{ill|Friedrich August Ludwig Nietzsche|de}} (1756–1826), was a theologian. {{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=22}} Nietzsche's parents, ] (1813–1849), a ] pastor<ref name=EB1911/> and former teacher; and {{ill|Franziska Nietzsche|de}} (''née'' Oehler) (1826–1897), married in 1843, the year before their son's birth. They had two other children: a daughter, ], born in 1846; and a second son, Ludwig Joseph, born in 1848. Nietzsche's father died from a brain disease in 1849, after a year of excruciating agony, when the boy was only four years old; Ludwig Joseph died six months later at age two.<ref name="Wicks">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2014 |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/nietzsche/ |last=Wicks |first=Robert |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Winter 2014}}</ref> The family then moved to ], where they lived with Nietzsche's maternal grandmother and his father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now ], a museum and Nietzsche study centre.
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influenced = ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ]

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Nietzsche attended a boys' school and then a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug and Wilhelm Pinder, both of whom came from highly respected families. Academic records from one of the schools attended by Nietzsche noted that he excelled in ].<ref name="Human, All Too Human, BBC Documentary, 1999">{{Cite web |year=1999 |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/human-all-too-human-bbc-documentary-1999 |access-date=16 October 2019 |website=Human, All Too Human |publisher=] Documentary |via=]}}</ref>
notable_ideas = ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ]|
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In 1854, he began to attend the Domgymnasium in Naumburg. Because his father had worked for the state (as a pastor) the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognised ]. The claim that Nietzsche was admitted on the strength of his academic competence has been debunked: his grades were not near the top of the class.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brobjer |first=Thomas H. |date=2001 |title=Why Did Nietzsche Receive a Scholarship to Study at Schulpforta? |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BROWDN |journal=] |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=322–328 |doi=10.1515/9783110172409.322 |s2cid=151393894}}</ref> He studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with ] and Carl von Gersdorff (1844–1904), who later became a jurist. He also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led "Germania", a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg.<ref name="Wicks" /> At Schulpforta, Nietzsche received an important grounding in languages—], ], ], and French—so as to be able to read important ]s;<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Krell |first1=David Farrell |title=The Good European: Nietzsche's work sites in word and image |last2=Bates |first2=Donald L. |date=1997 |publisher=]}}</ref> he also experienced for the first time being away from his family life in a small-town conservative environment. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 ] in Religion and German; a 2a in Greek and Latin; a 2b in French, History, and Physics; and a "lackluster" 3{{nbsp}}in Hebrew and Mathematics.{{sfn|Cate|2005|p=37}}
'''Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche''' (], ] – ], ]) ({{IPA2|ˈfʁiːtʁɪç ˈniːtʃə}}) was a ] ]. His writing included ] of ], ], contemporary ], ], and ], using a distinctive style and displaying a fondness for ]. Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in ] and ].


Nietzsche was an amateur composer.<ref name="Grove">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2001 |title=Nietzsche, Friedrich |encyclopedia=] |publisher=] |location=Oxford |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000019943 |last=Hollingdale |first=R. J. |author-link=R. J. Hollingdale |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.19943 |isbn=978-1-56159-263-0 |url-access=subscription}} {{Grove Music subscription}}</ref> He composed several works for voice, piano, and violin beginning in 1858 at the Schulpforta in Naumburg when he started to work on musical compositions. ] was dismissive of Nietzsche's music, allegedly mocking a birthday gift of a piano composition sent by Nietzsche in 1871 to Wagner's wife ]. German conductor and pianist ] also described another of Nietzsche's pieces as "the most undelightful and the most anti-musical draft on musical paper that I have faced in a long time".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Who knew? Friedrich Nietzsche was also a pretty decent classical composer |url=https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/friedrich-nietzsche-composer/ |website=]}}</ref>
Nietzsche began his career as a ] before turning to philosophy. At the age of 24 he became Professor of Classical Philology at the ], but resigned in 1879 due to health problems, which would plague him for most of his life. In 1889 he exhibited symptoms of a serious mental illness, living out his remaining years in the care of his mother and sister until his death in 1900.


While at Schulpforta, Nietzsche pursued subjects that were considered unbecoming. He became acquainted with the work of the then almost-unknown poet ], calling him "my favorite poet" and writing an essay in which he said that the poet raised consciousness to "the most sublime ideality".{{sfn|Hayman|1980|p=42}} The teacher who corrected the essay gave it a good mark but commented that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more lucid, and more "German" writers. Additionally, he became acquainted with ], an eccentric, ], and often ] poet who was found dead in a ditch weeks after meeting the young Nietzsche but who may have introduced Nietzsche to the music and writing of ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kohler |first=Joachim |title=Nietzsche & Wagner: A Lesson in Subjugation |date=1998 |publisher=] |page=17}}</ref> Perhaps under Ortlepp's influence, he and a student named Richter returned to school drunk and encountered a teacher, resulting in Nietzsche's demotion from first in his class and the end of his status as a ].{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=21}}
== Biography ==
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=== Youth (1844 – 1869) ===
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Born on ], ], Nietzsche lived in the small town of ], near ], in the ]n province of ]. His name comes from King ], who turned 49 on the day of Nietzsche's birth. (Nietzsche later dropped his given middle name, "Wilhelm".<ref>Kaufmann, Walter, ''Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist'', p. 22.</ref>) Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig (1813–1849), a ] ] and former teacher, and Franziska Oehler (1826–1897), married in 1843. His sister, ], was born in 1846, followed by a brother, Ludwig Joseph, in 1848. Nietzsche's father died from a brain ailment in 1849; his younger brother died in 1850. The family then moved to ], where they lived with Nietzsche's paternal grandmother and his father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house.
]


After graduation in September 1864,<ref>His "valedictorian paper" ({{lang|de|Valediktionsarbeit}}, graduation thesis for Pforta students) was titled "On ]" ("''De Theognide Megarensi''"); see {{harvnb|Jensen|Heit|2014|p=4}}</ref> Nietzsche began studying theology and classical philology at the ] in the hope of becoming a ]. For a short time, he and Deussen became members of the ] '']''. After one semester (and to the anger of his mother), he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith.<ref name="Schaberg">{{Cite book |last=Schaberg |first=William |title=The Nietzsche Canon |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1996 |page=32}}</ref> As early as his 1862 essay "Fate and History", Nietzsche had argued that historical research had discredited the central teachings of Christianity,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Salaquarda |first=Jörg |title=The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche |publisher=] |year=1996 |page=99 |chapter=Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian tradition}}</ref> but ]'s '']'' also seems to have had a profound effect on the young man.<ref name="Schaberg" /> In addition, ]'s '']'' influenced young Nietzsche with its argument that people created God, and not the other way around.{{sfn|Solomon|Higgins|2000|p=86}} In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith. This letter contains the following statement:
Nietzsche attended a boys' school and later a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug and Wilhelm Pinder, both of whom came from respected families. In 1854 he began to attend the ''Domgymnasium'' in Naumburg, but after he showed particular talents in ] and language, the internationally-recognized ] admitted him as a pupil, and there he continued his studies from 1858 to 1864. Here he became friends with ] and ]. He also found time to work on ]s and musical compositions. At Schulpforta, Nietzsche received an important introduction to literature, particularly that of the ancient ] and ], and for the first time experienced a distance from his family life in a small-town ] environment.
<blockquote>Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire....<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://babbledom.com/2011/02/17/intermission/ |title=Nietzsche, Letter to His Sister (1865) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121124011911/http://babbledom.com/2011/02/17/intermission/ |archive-date=24 November 2012 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all}}</ref></blockquote>
] strongly influenced Nietzsche's philosophical thought.]]
Nietzsche subsequently concentrated on studying philology under Professor ], whom he followed to the ] in 1865.{{sfn|Magnus|1999}} There he became close friends with his fellow student ]. Nietzsche's first philological publications appeared soon after.


In 1865, Nietzsche thoroughly studied the works of ]. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Schopenhauer's '']'' and later admitted that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers whom he respected, dedicating the essay "]" in the '']'' to him.
After graduation in 1864, Nietzsche commenced studies in ] and classical ] at the ]. For a short time, he and Deussen became members of the ] ''Frankonia''. After one semester (and to the anger of his mother) he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith.<ref name=Schaberg>Schaberg, William, ''The Nietzsche Canon'', University of Chicago Press, 1996, p32.</ref> This may have happened in part due to his reading about this time of ]'s ''Life of Jesus'', which had a profound effect on the young Nietzsche.<ref name=Schaberg/> Nietzsche then concentrated on studying ] under Professor ], whom he followed to the ] the next year. There, he became close friends with fellow-student ]. Nietzsche's first philological publications appeared soon after.


In 1866, he read ]'s '']''. Lange's descriptions of ]'s anti-materialistic philosophy, the rise of European ], Europe's increased concern with science, ]'s theory of ], and the general rebellion against tradition and authority intrigued Nietzsche greatly. Nietzsche would ultimately argue the impossibility of an evolutionary explanation of the human aesthetic sense.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pence |first=Charles H. |year=2011 |title=Nietzsche's aesthetic critique of Darwin |url=https://www.academia.edu/759427 |journal=] |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=165–190 |pmid=22288334}}{{Dead link|date=June 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}{{dead link|date=November 2022}}</ref>
]


In 1867, Nietzsche signed up for one year of ] with the ] in Naumburg. He was regarded as one of the finest ] among his fellow recruits, and his officers predicted that he would soon reach the rank of ]. However, in March 1868, while ] of his horse, Nietzsche struck his chest against the ] and ] in his left side, leaving him exhausted and unable to walk for months.{{sfn|Hayman|1980|p=93}}<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1921. "]." ''Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche'', translated by ].</ref> Consequently, he turned his attention to his studies again, completing them in 1868. Nietzsche also met ] for the first time later that year.<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1921. "." ''Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche'', translated by ].</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Nietzsche |first1=Friedrich |author-link=Friedrich Nietzsche |url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschewagnerc00nietiala/page/n7/mode/2up |title=The Nietzsche-Wagner Correspondence |last2=Wagner |first2=Richard |author-link2=Richard Wagner |publisher=] |others=] |editor-last=Foerster-Nietzsche |editor-first=Elizabeth |editor-link=Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche |publication-place=] |publication-date=1921 |translator-last=Kerr |translator-first=Caroline V. |asin=B000HFOAGI |translator-link=Caroline V. Kerr}}</ref>
In 1865, Nietzsche became acquainted with the work of ], and he read ] '']'' in 1866. He found both of these encounters stimulating: they encouraged him to expand his horizons beyond philology and to continue his schooling. In 1867, Nietzsche signed up for one year of voluntary service with the Prussian ] division in ]. However, a bad riding accident in March 1868 left him unfit for service. Consequently Nietzsche turned his attention to his studies again, completing them and first meeting with ] later that year.


=== Professor at Basel (1869–1879) === === Professor at Basel (1869–1879) ===
{{anchor|Professor at Basel|Basel}}
] ], Karl von Gersdorff and Nietzsche, October 1871]]
In 1869, with Ritschl's support, Nietzsche received an offer to become a professor of ] at the ] in Switzerland. He was only 24 years old and had neither completed his doctorate nor received a teaching certificate ("'']''"). He was awarded an ] by ] in March 1869, again with Ritschl's support.{{sfn|Jensen|Heit|2014|p=129}}


Despite his offer coming at a time when he was considering giving up philology for science, he accepted.{{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=25}} To this day, Nietzsche is still among the youngest of the tenured Classics professors on record.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bishop |first=Paul |title=Nietzsche and Antiquity |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |year=2004 |isbn=978-1571136480 |page=117}}</ref>
Due in part to Ritschl's support, Nietzsche received a generous offer to become ] of ] at the ] before having completed his doctorate degree or certificate for teaching. After moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship: for the rest of his life he remained officially ].<ref>
Hecker, Hellmuth: "Nietzsches Staatsangehörigkeit als Rechtsfrage", ''Neue Juristische Wochenschrift'', Jg. 40, 1987, nr. 23, p. 1388-1391; and His, Eduard: "Friedrich Nietzsches Heimatlosigkeit", ''Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde'', vol. 40, 1941, p. 159-186. Note that some authors (among them ] and ]) falsely claim that Nietzsche became a Swiss citizen.
</ref>
Nevertheless, he served on the Prussian side during the ] of 1870 to 1871 as a medical ]. In his short time in the military he experienced much, and witnessed the traumatic effects of battle. He also contracted ] and ]. ] speculates that he might also have contracted ] along with his other infections at this time — if (as many though not all believe) syphilis caused his eventual madness. On returning to Basel in 1870, Nietzsche observed the establishment of the ] and the following era of ] as an outsider and with a degree of skepticism regarding its genuineness. At the University, he delivered his inaugural lecture, "] and Classical Philology". Nietzsche also met ], a professor of theology, who remained his friend throughout his life. ],<ref>
</ref>
a little-known Russian philosopher and author of ''Thought and Reality'' (1873), and his colleague the historian ], whose lectures Nietzsche frequently attended, began to exercise significant influence on Nietzsche during this time.
Nietzsche had already met Richard Wagner in Leipzig in 1868, and (some time later) Wagner's wife ]. Nietzsche admired both greatly, and during his time at Basel frequently visited Wagner's house in ] in the ]. The Wagners brought Nietzsche into their most intimate circle, and enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of the ]. In 1870, he gave Cosima Wagner the manuscript of 'The Genesis of the Tragic Idea' as a birthday gift. In 1872, Nietzsche published his first book, ]. However, his classical philological colleagues, including Ritschl, expressed little enthusiasm for the work, in which Nietzsche forewent a precise philological method to employ a style of philosophical speculation. In a ], ''Philology of the Future'', ] dampened the book's reception and increased its notoriety. In response, Rohde (by now a professor in ]) and Wagner came to Nietzsche's defense. Nietzsche remarked freely about the isolation he felt within the philological community and attempted to attain a position in philosophy at Basel, though unsuccessfully.
]
Between 1873 and 1876, Nietzsche published separately four long essays: ''David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer'', ''On the Use and Abuse of History for Life'', ''Schopenhauer as Educator'', and ''Richard Wagner in Bayreuth''. (These four later appeared in a collected edition under the title, ''Untimely Meditations''.) The four essays shared the orientation of a cultural critique, challenging the developing German culture along lines suggested by Schopenhauer and Wagner. Starting in 1873, Nietzsche also accumulated the notes later posthumously published as '']''. During this time, in the circle of the Wagners, Nietzsche met ] and ], and also began a friendship with ], who in 1876 influenced him in dismissing the pessimism in his early writings. However, his disappointment with the ] of 1876, where the banality of the shows and the baseness of the public repelled him, caused him in the end to distance himself from Wagner.


Nietzsche's 1870 projected ], "Contribution toward the Study and the Critique of the Sources of Diogenes Laertius" ("''Beiträge zur Quellenkunde und Kritik des Laertius Diogenes''"), examined the origins of the ideas of ].{{sfn|Jensen|Heit|2014|p=115}} Though never submitted, it was later published as a {{Langx|de|text=Gratulationsschrift|label=none}} ('congratulatory publication') in ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=McCarthy |first=George E. |title=Dialectics and Decadence |url=http://personal.kenyon.edu/mccarthy/Book1.htm}}</ref>{{efn-lr|Between 1868 and 1870, he published two other studies on Diogenes Laertius: ''On the Sources of Diogenes Laertius'' (''De Fontibus Diogenis Laertii'') Part I (1868) & Part II (1869); and ''Analecta Laertiana'' (1870). See {{harvnb|Jensen|Heit|2014|p=115}}}}
With the publication of '']'' in 1878, a book of ] on subjects ranging from metaphysics to morality and from religion to the sexes, Nietzsche's departure from the philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer became evident. Nietzsche's friendship with Deussen and Rohde cooled as well. Nietzsche in this time attempted to find a wife — to no avail. In 1879, after a significant decline in health, Nietzsche had to resign his position at Basel. (Since his childhood, various disruptive illnesses had plagued him — moments of shortsightedness practically to the degree of blindness, migraine headaches, and violent stomach attacks. The 1868 riding accident and diseases in 1870 may have aggravated these persistent conditions, which continued to affect him through his years at Basel, forcing him to take longer and longer holidays until regular work became no longer practical.)

Before moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship: for the rest of his life he remained officially ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hecker |first=Hellmuth |year=1987 |title=Nietzsches Staatsangehörigkeit als Rechtsfrage. |trans-title=Nietzsche's nationality as a legal question |journal=] |language=de |volume=40 |pages=1388–1391 |number=23}}</ref><ref>His, Eduard. 1941. "Friedrich Nietzsches Heimatlosigkeit." ''Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde'' 40:159–186.

Note that some authors (incl. Deussen and ]) mistakenly claim that Nietzsche became a Swiss citizen to become a university professor.</ref>

Nevertheless, Nietzsche served in the Prussian forces during the ] (1870–1871) as a medical ]. In his short time in the military, he experienced much and witnessed the traumatic effects of battle. He also contracted ] and ].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Deussen |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Deussen |title=Erinnerungen a Friedrich Nietzsche |date=1901 |publisher=] |location=Leipzig |language=de |trans-title=Memoirs of Friedrich Nietzsche}}</ref> ] speculates that he also contracted ] at a brothel along with his other infections at this time.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sax |first=Leonard |year=2003 |title=What was the cause of Nietzsche's dementia? |journal=] |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=47–54 |doi=10.1177/096777200301100113 |pmid=12522502 |s2cid=6929185}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schain |first=Richard |title=The Legend of Nietzsche's Syphilis |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=2001 |location=Westwood}}{{full citation needed|date=November 2012}}</ref> On returning to Basel in 1870, Nietzsche observed the establishment of the ] and ]'s subsequent policies as an outsider and with a degree of scepticism regarding their genuineness. His inaugural lecture at the university was "]". Nietzsche also met ], a professor of theology who remained his friend throughout his life. ], a little-known Russian philosopher responsible for the 1873 ''Thought and Reality'' and Nietzsche's colleague, the historian ], whose lectures Nietzsche frequently attended, began to exercise significant influence on him.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Green |first=M. S. |title=Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition |date=2002 |publisher=]}}{{full citation needed|date=November 2012}}</ref>

Nietzsche had already met Richard Wagner in Leipzig in 1868 and later Wagner's wife, Cosima. Nietzsche admired both greatly and during his time at Basel frequently visited Wagner's house in ] in ]. The Wagners brought Nietzsche into their most intimate circle—which included ], of whom Nietzsche colloquially described: "Liszt or the art of running after women!"<ref>]. 2004. "." Ch. 1 in . ]. Also available via .</ref> Nietzsche enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of the ]. In 1870, he gave Cosima Wagner the manuscript of "The Genesis of the Tragic Idea" as a birthday gift. In 1872, Nietzsche published his first book, '']''. However, his colleagues within his field, including Ritschl, expressed little enthusiasm for the work in which Nietzsche eschewed the classical philologic method in favour of a more speculative approach. In his ] ''Philology of the Future'', ] damped the book's reception and increased its notoriety. In response, Rohde (then a professor in ]) and Wagner came to Nietzsche's defence. Nietzsche remarked freely about the isolation he felt within the philological community and attempted unsuccessfully to transfer to a position in philosophy at Basel.
]

In 1873, Nietzsche began to accumulate notes that would be posthumously published as '']''. Between 1873 and 1876, he published four separate long essays: "]: the Confessor and the Writer", "]", "Schopenhauer as Educator", and "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth". These four later appeared in a collected edition under the title '']''. The essays shared the orientation of a cultural critique, challenging the developing German culture suggested by Schopenhauer and Wagner. During this time in the circle of the Wagners, he met ] and ]. He also began a friendship with ] who, in 1876, influenced him into dismissing the ] in his early writings. However, he was deeply disappointed by the ] of 1876, where the banality of the shows and baseness of the public repelled him. He was also alienated by Wagner's championing of "German culture", which Nietzsche felt a contradiction in terms, as well as by Wagner's celebration of his fame among the German public. All this contributed to his subsequent decision to distance himself from Wagner.

With the publication in 1878 of '']'' (a book of ]s ranging from metaphysics to morality to religion), a new style of Nietzsche's work became clear, highly influenced by ]'s ''Thought and Reality''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Safranski |first=Rüdiger |author-link=Rüdiger Safranski |title=] |date=2003 |publisher=] |page=161 |translator-last=Frisch |translator-first=Shelley |quote=This work had long been consigned to oblivion, but it had a lasting impact on Nietzsche. Section 18 of ''Human, All Too Human'' cited Spir, not by name, but by presenting a 'proposition by an outstanding logician' (2,38; HH I §&nbsp;18). |translator-link=Shelley Frisch}}</ref> and reacting against the pessimistic philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer. Nietzsche's friendship with Deussen and Rohde cooled as well. In 1879, after a significant decline in health, Nietzsche had to resign his position at Basel and was pensioned.<ref name=EB1911/> Since his childhood, various disruptive illnesses had plagued him, including moments of shortsightedness that left him nearly blind, ] headaches, and violent indigestion. The 1868 riding accident and diseases in 1870 may have aggravated these persistent conditions, which continued to affect him through his years at Basel, forcing him to take longer and longer holidays until regular work became impractical.


=== Independent philosopher (1879–1888) === === Independent philosopher (1879–1888) ===
{{anchor|independent philosopher|philosopher}}
], ] and Nietzsche travelled through Italy in 1882, planning to establish an educational commune together, but the friendship disintegrated in late 1882 due to complications from Rée's and Nietzsche's mutual romantic interest in Salomé.]]


Because his illness drove him to find more compatible climates, Nietzsche traveled frequently, and lived until 1889 as an independent author in different cities. He spent many summers in ], near ] in ], and many winters in the ] cities of ], ], and ], and in the French city of ]. In 1881, when ], he planned to travel to ] in order to gain a view of Europe from the outside, but later abandoned that idea (probably for health reasons).<ref> Living on his pension from Basel along with aid from friends, Nietzsche travelled frequently to find climates more conducive to his health. He lived until 1889 as an independent author in different cities. He spent many summers in ] near ] in Switzerland, and many of his winters in the Italian cities of ], ], and ] and the French city of ]. In 1881, when ], he planned to travel to ] to view Europe from the outside but later abandoned that idea, probably for health reasons.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Güntzel |first=Stephan |date=2003 |title=Nietzsche's Geophilosophy |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/45353/pdf |format=PDF |journal=] |volume=25 |pages=78–91 (85) |doi=10.1353/nie.2003.0010 |s2cid=201784626 |via=]}}</ref> Nietzsche occasionally returned to Naumburg to visit his family, and, especially during this time, he and ] had repeated periods of conflict and reconciliation.
Stephan Güntzel, , p.85 in: ''Journal of Nietzsche Studies'' 25 (Spring 2003), The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park (Penn State), 2003-10-15; re-published on HyperNietzsche's website {{en icon}}/{{de icon}}
</ref>
Nietzsche occasionally returned to Naumburg to visit his family, and especially during this time, he and his sister had repeated periods of conflict and reconciliation. He lived on his pension from Basel, but also received aid from friends. A past student of his, ] (born Heinrich Köselitz), became a sort of private secretary to Nietzsche. To the end of his life, Gast and Overbeck remained consistently faithful friends. Malwida von Meysenbug remained like a motherly patron even outside the Wagner circle. Soon Nietzsche made contact with the music critic ]. Nietzsche stood at the beginning of his most productive period. Beginning with '']'' in 1878, Nietzsche would publish one book (or major section of a book) each year until 1888, his last year of writing, during which he completed five.
], ] and Nietzsche, 1882.]]


While in ], Nietzsche's failing eyesight prompted him to explore the use of ]s as a means of continuing to write. He is known to have tried using the ], a contemporary typewriter device. In the end, a past student of his, ], became a private secretary to Nietzsche. In 1876, Gast transcribed the crabbed, nearly illegible handwriting of Nietzsche's first time with Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=221}} He subsequently transcribed and proofread the galleys for almost all of Nietzsche's work. On at least one occasion, on 23 February 1880, the usually poor Gast received 200 marks from their mutual friend, Paul Rée.{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=297}} Gast was one of the very few friends Nietzsche allowed to criticise him. In responding most enthusiastically to '']'' ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra"), Gast did feel it necessary to point out that what were described as "superfluous" people were in fact quite necessary. He went on to list the number of people ], for example, had to rely on to supply his simple diet of goat cheese.{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=415}}
In 1882 Nietzsche published the first part of '']''. That year he also met ] through Malwida von Meysenbug and ]. Nietzsche and Salomé spent the summer together in ] in ], often with Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth as chaperon. However, Nietzsche regarded Salomé less as an equal partner than as a gifted student. He fell in love with her and pursued her with the help of their mutual friend Rée. Salomé reports that he asked her to marry him and that she refused, though the reliability of her reports of events has come into question{{Fact|date=May 2007}}. Nietzsche's relationship with Rée and Salomé broke up in the winter of 1882/1883, partially due to intrigues conducted by his sister Elisabeth. In the face of renewed fits of illness, in near isolation after a falling-out with his mother and sister regarding Salomé, and plagued by suicidal thoughts, Nietzsche fled to ], where he wrote the first part of '']'' in only ten days.


To the end of his life, Gast and Overbeck remained consistently faithful friends. ] remained like a motherly patron even outside the Wagner circle. Soon Nietzsche made contact with the music-critic Carl Fuchs. Nietzsche stood at the beginning of his most productive period. Beginning with '']'' in 1878, Nietzsche published one book or major section of a book each year until 1888, his last year of writing; that year, he completed five.
After severing his philosophical ties with Schopenhauer and his social ties with Wagner, Nietzsche had few remaining friends. Now, with the new style of ''Zarathustra'', his work became even more alienating and the market received it only to the degree required by politeness. Nietzsche recognized this and maintained his solitude, even though he often complained about it. His books remained largely unsold. In 1885, he printed only 40 copies of the fourth part of ''Zarathustra'', and distributed only a fraction of these among close friends, including ].


In 1882, Nietzsche published the first part of '']''. That year he also met ],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lou von Salomé |url=http://www.f-nietzsche.de/lou_e.htm |website=f-nietzsche.de}}</ref> through Malwida von Meysenbug and ].
In 1886 Nietzsche broke with his editor, Ernst Schmeitzner, disgusted over his anti-Semitic opinions. He saw his writings as "completely buried and unexhumeable in this anti-Semitic dump" of Schmeitzner — associating him with a movement that should be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind".<ref>
, Correspondences
</ref>
He then printed '']'' at his own expense, and issued in 1886-87 second editions of his earlier works ('']'', '']'', '']'', and '']''), accompanied by new prefaces in which he re-read his earlier works. Hereafter, he saw his work as completed for the time and hoped that soon a readership would develop. In fact, interest in Nietzsche's thought did increase at this time, even if rather slowly and hardly perceived by him. During these years Nietzsche met ], ], and also ]. In 1886, his sister Elisabeth married the ] ] and traveled to ] to found ], a "Germanic" colony, a plan to which Nietzsche responded with laughter. Through correspondence, Nietzsche's relationship with Elisabeth continued on the path of conflict and reconciliation, but they would meet again only after his collapse. He continued to have frequent and painful attacks of illness, which made prolonged work impossible. In 1887, Nietzsche quickly wrote the ] '']''.


Salomé's mother took her to Rome when Salomé was 21. At a literary salon in the city, Salomé became acquainted with ]. Rée proposed marriage to her, but she, instead, proposed that they should live and study together as "brother and sister", along with another man for company, where they would establish an academic commune.{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=149}} Rée accepted the idea and suggested that they be joined by his friend Nietzsche. The two met Nietzsche in Rome in April 1882, and Nietzsche is believed to have instantly fallen in love with Salomé, as Rée had done. Nietzsche asked Rée to propose marriage to Salomé, which she rejected. She had been interested in Nietzsche as a friend, but not as a husband.{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=149}} Nietzsche nonetheless was content to join with Rée and Salomé touring through Switzerland and Italy together, planning their commune. The three travelled with Salomé's mother through Italy and considered where they would set up their "Winterplan" commune. They intended to set up their commune in an abandoned monastery, but no suitable location was found. On 13 May, in Lucerne, when Nietzsche was alone with Salomé, he earnestly proposed marriage to her again, which she rejected. He nonetheless was happy to continue with the plans for an academic commune.{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=149}} After discovering the relationship, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became determined to get Nietzsche away from the "immoral woman".{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=151}} Nietzsche and Salomé spent the summer together in ] in Thuringia, often with Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth as a chaperone. Salomé reports that he asked her to marry him on three separate occasions and that she refused, though the reliability of her reports of events is questionable.{{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=49}} Arriving in ] (Germany) in October, Salomé and Rée separated from Nietzsche after a falling-out between Nietzsche and Salomé, in which Salomé believed that Nietzsche was desperately in love with her.
During this year Nietzsche encountered ]'s work, which he quickly appropriated.<ref name=Kaufmann_Dostoevsky> Kaufmann, Walter, ''Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist'', pp. 306–340.</ref> He also exchanged letters with ], and then also with ]. Brandes, who had started to teach the philosophy of ] in the 1870s, wrote to Nietzsche asking him to ], to which Nietzsche replied that he would come to Copenhagen and read Kierkegaard with him. However, before fulfilling this undertaking, he slipped too far into sickness and madness. In the beginning of 1888, in Copenhagen, Brandes delivered one of the first lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy.


While the three spent a number of weeks together in Leipzig in October 1882, the following month Rée and Salomé left Nietzsche, leaving for Stibbe (today ] in Poland)<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Killy |first1=Walther |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JkoK_108xJkC&q=Stibbe+Zdbowo+Nietzsche&pg=PT223 |title=Plett – Schmidseder |last2=Vierhaus |first2=Rudolf |publisher=] |year=2011 |isbn=978-3-11-096630-5 |language=en |via=]}}</ref> without any plans to meet again. Nietzsche soon fell into a period of mental anguish, although he continued to write to Rée, stating "We shall see one another from time to time, won't we?"{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=152}} In later recriminations, Nietzsche would blame on separate occasions the failure in his attempts to woo Salomé on Salomé, Rée, and on the intrigues of his sister (who had written letters to the families of Salomé and Rée to disrupt the plans for the commune). Nietzsche wrote of the affair in 1883, that he now felt "genuine hatred for my sister".{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=152}}
Although Nietzsche had in 1886 announced (at the end of '']'') a new work with the title '']. Essay of a ]'', he eventually abandoned this project and used its draft materials to compose '']'' and '']'' (both written in 1888).<ref>
], ''Friedrich Nietzsche'' (1974; transl. in German in 1991, ''Friedrich Nietzsche. Eine Einführung.'', Berlin-New York, De Gruyter; and in French, ''Friedrich Nietzsche'', ], 2001)
</ref>


Amidst renewed bouts of illness, living in near-isolation after a falling out with his mother and sister regarding Salomé, Nietzsche fled to Rapallo, where he wrote the first part of ''Also Sprach Zarathustra'' in only ten days.
His health seemed to improve, and he spent the summer in high spirits. In the fall of 1888 his writings and letters began to reveal a higher estimation of his own status and 'fate'. He overestimated the increasing response to his writings, above all, for the recent ], '']''. On his 44th birthday, after completing '']'' and '']'', he decided to write the autobiography '']'', which presents itself to his readers in order that they "ear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else." (Preface, sec. 1, tr. ]) In December, Nietzsche began a correspondence with ], and thought that, short of an international breakthrough, he would attempt to buy back his older writings from the publisher and have them translated into other European languages. Moreover, he planned the publication of the compilation '']'' and of the poems '']''.
], 1882]]


By 1882, Nietzsche was taking huge doses of ] and continued to have trouble sleeping.{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=389}} In 1883, while staying in Nice, he was writing out his own prescriptions for the sedative ], signing them "Dr. Nietzsche".{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=453}}
=== Mental breakdown and death (1889–1900)===
] from the photographic series "The Ill Nietzsche", summer of 1899.]]


He turned away from the influence of ], and after he severed his social ties with Wagner, Nietzsche had few remaining friends. Now, with the new style of ''Zarathustra'', his work became even more alienating, and the market received it only to the degree required by politeness. Nietzsche recognised this and maintained his solitude, though he often complained. His books remained largely unsold. In 1885, he printed only 40 copies of the fourth part of ''Zarathustra'' and distributed a fraction of them among close friends, including ].
On ], ], Nietzsche exhibited signs of a serious mental illness. Two policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the streets of ]. What actually happened remains unknown. The often-repeated tale states that Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms up around the horse’s neck to protect it, and collapsed to the ground. (The first dream-sequence from ]'s '']'' has just such a scene in which ] witnesses the whipping of a horse around the eyes (Part 1, Chapter 5).<ref>
On whips, see also ]'s discussion of whipping in ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' and in Schopenhauer's '']'', II, chap XXX: ''Ueber Lärm und Geräusch'': , published on the ''HyperNietzsche'' website {{fr icon}}
</ref>
Incidentally, Nietzsche called Dostoyevsky "he only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn." (''Twilight of the Idols'', Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889, §45).)


In 1883, he tried and failed to obtain a lecturing post at the ]. According to a letter he wrote to Peter Gast, this was due to his "attitude towards Christianity and the concept of God".<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1921. "]." ''Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche'', translated by ].</ref>
In the following few days, he sent short writings — known as the "''Wahnbriefe''" ("Madness Letters") — to a number of friends (including ] and Jacob Burckhardt).


In 1886, Nietzsche broke with his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner, disgusted by his antisemitic opinions. Nietzsche saw his own writings as "completely buried and in this anti-Semitic dump" of Schmeitzner—associating the publisher with a movement that should be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind".<ref>{{Cite web |date=1 February 2000 |title=Ernst Schmeitzner (1851–1895). 115 letters 1874–1886 {{!}} Correspondences |url=http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/correspondence/corresp.htm#schmei |access-date=27 November 2013 |website=The Nietzsche Channel}}</ref> He then printed '']'' at his own expense. He also acquired the publication rights for his earlier works and over the next year issued second editions of ''The Birth of Tragedy'', '']'', '']'', and of '']'' with new prefaces placing the body of his work in a more coherent perspective. Thereafter, he saw his work as completed for a time and hoped that soon a readership would develop. In fact, interest in Nietzsche's thought did increase at this time, if rather slowly and imperceptibly to him. During these years Nietzsche met ], ], and ].
To his former colleague Burckhardt Nietzsche wrote: "I have had ] put in fetters. Also, last year I was crucified by the German doctors in a very drawn-out manner. Wilhelm, ], and all anti-Semites abolished."<ref>
''The Portable Nietzsche'', trans. Walter Kaufmann.
</ref>


In 1886, his sister Elisabeth married the antisemite ] and travelled to Paraguay to found ], a "Germanic" colony.<ref>"." '']''. 2019. Retrieved 25 May 2020.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=van Eerten |first=Jurriaan |date=27 February 2016 |title=The lost 'Aryan utopia' of Nueva Germania |url=https://ticotimes.net/2016/02/27/the-lost-aryan-utopia-of-nueva-germania |access-date=29 September 2019 |website=The Tico Times |location=Costa Rica}}</ref> Through correspondence, Nietzsche's relationship with Elisabeth continued through cycles of conflict and reconciliation, but they met again only after his collapse. He continued to have frequent and painful attacks of illness, which made prolonged work impossible.
On ], ], Burckhardt showed the letter he had received from Nietzsche to Overbeck. The following day, Overbeck received a similarly revealing letter, and decided that Nietzsche's friends had to bring him back to Basel. Overbeck travelled to Turin and brought Nietzsche to a psychiatric clinic in Basel. By that time, Nietzsche appeared fully in the grip of insanity, and his mother Franziska decided to transfer him to a clinic in ] under the direction of ]. From November 1889 to February 1890, ] attempted to cure Nietzsche, claiming that the doctors' methods were ineffective to cure Nietzsche's condition. Langbehn assumed progressively greater control of Nietzsche until his secrecy discredited him. In March 1890 Franziska removed Nietzsche from the clinic, and in May 1890 brought him to her home in Naumburg. During this process, Overbeck and Gast contemplated what to do with Nietzsche's unpublished works. In January 1889 they proceeded with the planned release of '']'', by that time already printed and bound. In February, they ordered a 50-copy private edition of ''Nietzsche contra Wagner'', but the publisher ] secretly printed 100. Overbeck and Gast decided to withhold publishing '']'' and ''Ecce Homo'' due to their more radical content. Nietzsche's reception and recognition enjoyed their first surge.
] would "correct" Nietzsche's writings even after the philosopher's breakdown and so without his approval - something heavily criticized by ]'s Nietzsche scholarship.]]
In 1893 Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth returned from ] (]) following the suicide of her husband. She read and studied Nietzsche's works, and piece by piece took control of them and of their publication. Overbeck eventually suffered dismissal, and Gast finally co-operated. After the death of Franziska in 1897, Nietzsche lived in ], where Elisabeth cared for him and allowed people, including ], to visit her uncommunicative brother.


In 1887, Nietzsche wrote the polemic '']''. During the same year, he encountered the work of ], to whom he felt an immediate kinship.<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1921. "]." ''Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche'', translated by ].</ref> He also exchanged letters with ] and ]. Brandes, who had started to teach the philosophy of ] in the 1870s, wrote to Nietzsche asking him to ], to which Nietzsche replied that he would come to ] and read Kierkegaard with him. However, before fulfilling this promise, Nietzsche slipped too far into illness. At the beginning of 1888, Brandes delivered in Copenhagen one of the first lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy.
Commentators have frequently diagnosed a ] as the cause of the illness; however, some of Nietzsche's symptoms — and the long period before it presumably began affecting his mind — seem inconsistent with typical<!--keyword, typical. this was likely an atypical case. syphilis can incubate for quite a long time.--> cases of ]. While most commentators regard Nietzsche's breakdown as unrelated to his philosophy, some, including ] and ], argue for considering his breakdown as a symptom of a psychological maladjustment brought on by his philosophy.


Although Nietzsche had previously announced at the end of '']'' a new work with the title '']: Attempt at a ]'', he seems to have abandoned this idea and, instead, used some of the draft passages to compose '']'' and '']'' in 1888.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Montinari |first=Mazzino |title=Friedrich Nietzsche. Eine Einführung |publisher=] |year=1974 |language=de}} translated as {{cite book |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |language=fr |year=1991 |location=Paris |publisher=]}}</ref>
On ], ], Nietzsche died after contracting ]. Elisabeth had him buried beside his father at the church in Röcken. His friend, Gast, gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: "Holy be your name to all future generations!"<ref>
Schain, Richard. "Nietzsche's Visionary Values - Genius or Dementia?
</ref>
(Note that Nietzsche had pointed out in his book ''Ecce Homo'', not yet published at the time, how he did not wish people to call him "holy".)


His health improved and he spent the summer in high spirits. In the autumn of 1888, his writings and letters began to reveal a higher estimation of his own status and "fate". He overestimated the increasing response to his writings, however, especially to the recent polemic, '']''. On his 44th birthday, after completing ''Twilight of the Idols'' and ''The Antichrist'', he decided to write the autobiography '']''. In its preface—which suggests Nietzsche was well aware of the interpretive difficulties his work would generate—he declares, "Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else."{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888d |loc=Preface, section 1}} In December, Nietzsche began a correspondence with ] and thought that, short of an international breakthrough, he would attempt to buy back his older writings from the publisher and have them translated into other European languages. Moreover, he planned the publication of the compilation '']'' and of the poems that made up his collection '']''.
Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche compiled '']'', from notes he had written, and published it posthumously. Since his sister arranged the book, the general consensus holds that it does not reflect Nietzsche's intent. Indeed, ], the editor of Nietzsche's '']'', called it a forgery in ''The 'Will to Power' does not exist''. Among other forgeries and suppressions of passages, Elisabeth removed aphorism 35 of '']'', where Nietzsche rewrote a passage of the Bible (''See '']'' and ] for further information''). .

=== Mental illness and death (1889–1900) ===
{{anchor|mental breakdown and death|breakdown|death}}] from the photographic series ''The Ill Nietzsche'', late 1899|251x251px]]On 3 January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a ].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xeb80itrlRIC |title=The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche |date=1996 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-521-36767-7 |editor-last=Magnus |editor-first=Bernd |pages=79–81 |language=en |editor-last2=Higgins |editor-first2=Kathleen Marie}}</ref> Two policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the streets of ]. What happened remains unknown, but an often-repeated tale from shortly after his death states that Nietzsche witnessed the flogging of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms around its neck to protect it, then collapsed to the ground.{{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=67}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Verrecchia |first=Anacleto |title=Nietzsche in Italy |date=1988 |publisher=ANMA Libri, ] |editor-last=Harrison |editor-first=T. |location=Stanford |pages=105–112 |chapter=Nietzsche's Breakdown in Turin}}</ref> In the following few days, Nietzsche sent short writings—known as the ''Wahnzettel'' or ''Wahnbriefe'' (literally "Delusion notes" or "letters")—to a number of friends including ] and ]. Most of them were signed "]", though some were also signed "der Gekreuzigte" meaning "the crucified one". To his former colleague Burckhardt, Nietzsche wrote:<ref>{{Cite web |last=Simon |first=Gerald |date=January 1889 |title=Nietzsches Briefe. Ausgewählte Korrespondenz. Wahnbriefe. |trans-title=Nietzsche's letters. Selected Correspondence. delusional letters. |url=http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/correspondence/ger/nilettersg.htm |access-date=24 August 2013 |publisher=The Nietzsche Channel |language=de |quote=Ich habe Kaiphas in Ketten legen lassen; auch bin ich voriges Jahr von den deutschen Ärzten auf eine sehr langwierige Weise gekreuzigt worden. Wilhelm, Bismarck und alle Antisemiten abgeschafft. |trans-quote=I put Caiaphas in chains; I was also crucified last year by the German doctors in a very lengthy manner. Wilhelm, Bismarck and all anti-Semites abolished.}}</ref><blockquote>I have had ] put in ]. Also, last year I was crucified by the German doctors in a very drawn-out manner. ], ], and all anti-Semites abolished.</blockquote>Additionally, he commanded the German emperor to go to Rome to be shot and summoned the European powers to take military action against Germany,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zweig |first=Stefan |author-link=Stefan Zweig |title=The Struggle with the Daimon: Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche |date=1939 |publisher=] |series=Master Builders of the Spirit |volume=2 |page=524}}</ref> writing also that the pope should be put in jail and that he, Nietzsche, created the world and was in the process of having all anti-Semites shot dead.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nietzsches Briefe, Ausgewählte Korrespondenz, Wahnzettel 1889 |trans-title=Nietzsche's Letters, Selected Correspondence, Wahnzettel 1889 |url=http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/correspondence/ger/nlett1889g.htm |website=The Nietzsche Channel |language=de}}</ref>

]
On 6 January 1889, Burckhardt showed the letter he had received from Nietzsche to Overbeck. The following day, Overbeck received a similar letter and decided that Nietzsche's friends had to bring him back to Basel. Overbeck travelled to Turin and brought Nietzsche to a psychiatric clinic in Basel. By that time Nietzsche appeared fully in the grip of a serious mental illness,<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Malcolm |year=2011 |title=1889 |url=https://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/1889.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120208181453/http://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/1889.html |archive-date=8 February 2012 |access-date=28 September 2019 |website=Nietzsche Chronicle |publisher=]}}</ref> and his mother Franziska decided to transfer him to a clinic in ] under the direction of ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Safranski |first=Rüdiger |url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00safr_0/page/371 |title=Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography |publisher=] |year=2003 |isbn=0-393-05008-4 |location=New York |page=}}</ref> In January 1889, they proceeded with the planned release of '']'', by that time already printed and bound. From November 1889 to February 1890, the art historian ] attempted to cure Nietzsche, claiming that the methods of the medical doctors were ineffective in treating Nietzsche's condition.<ref>{{Cite web |editor-last=Sorensen |editor-first=Lee |title=Langbehn, Julius |url=http://arthistorians.info/langbehnj |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190608170651/http://arthistorians.info/langbehnj |archive-date=8 June 2019 |access-date=29 September 2019 |website=Dictionary of Art Historians}}</ref> Langbehn assumed progressively greater control of Nietzsche until his secretiveness discredited him. In March 1890, Franziska removed Nietzsche from the clinic and, in May 1890, brought him to her home in Naumburg.<ref name=":1" /> During this process Overbeck and Gast contemplated what to do with Nietzsche's unpublished works. In February, they ordered a fifty-copy private edition of '']'', but the publisher C. G. Naumann secretly printed one hundred. Overbeck and Gast decided to withhold publishing '']'' and '']'' because of their more radical content.<ref name=":1" /> Nietzsche's reception and recognition enjoyed their first surge.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Safranski |first=Rüdiger |url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00safr_0/page/317 |title=Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography |publisher=] |year=2003 |isbn=0-393-05008-4 |pages=}}</ref>

In 1893, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth returned from ] in Paraguay following the suicide of her husband. She studied Nietzsche's works and, piece by piece, took control of their publication. Overbeck was dismissed and Gast finally co-operated. After the death of Franziska in 1897, Nietzsche lived in ], where Elisabeth cared for him and allowed visitors, including ] (who in 1895 had written ''Friedrich Nietzsche: A Fighter Against His Time'', one of the first books praising Nietzsche),<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |title=Friedrich Nietzsche, in Kämpfer seine Zeit |year=1895 |location=Weimar |language=de |trans-title=Friedrich Nietzsche, in Fighters of His Time}}</ref> to meet her uncommunicative brother. Elisabeth employed Steiner as a tutor to help her to understand her brother's philosophy. Steiner abandoned the attempt after only a few months, declaring that it was impossible to teach her anything about philosophy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bailey |first=Andrew |title=First Philosophy: Fundamental Problems and Readings in Philosophy |publisher=] |year=2002 |page=704}}</ref>
] "corrected" Nietzsche's writings without his approval.|alt=|left|350x350px]]

Nietzsche's insanity was originally diagnosed as ], in accordance with a prevailing medical paradigm of the time. Although most commentators{{who|date=May 2021}} regard his breakdown as unrelated to his philosophy, ] wrote poetically of his condition ("'Man incarnate' must also go mad")<ref name="Bataille">{{Cite journal |last1=Bataille |first1=Georges |last2=Michelson |first2=Annette |date=Spring 1986 |title=Nietzsche's Madness |journal=] |volume=36 |pages=42–45 |doi=10.2307/778548 |jstor=778548}}</ref> and ]'s postmortem psychoanalysis posits a worshipful rivalry with ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Girard |first=René |author-link=René Girard |year=1976 |title=Superman in the Underground: Strategies of Madness – Nietzsche, Wagner, and Dostoevsky. |journal=] |volume=91 |pages=1161–1185 |doi=10.2307/2907130 |jstor=2907130 |s2cid=163754306 |number=6}}</ref> Girard suggests that Nietzsche signed his final letters as both Dionysus and the Crucified One because he was demonstrating that by being a god (Dionysus), one is also a victim (Crucified One) since a god still suffers by overcoming the law. Nietzsche had previously written, "All superior men who were irresistibly drawn to throw off the yoke of any kind of morality and to frame new laws had, if they were not actually mad, no alternative but to make themselves or pretend to be mad." (Daybreak, 14) The diagnosis of syphilis has since been challenged and a diagnosis of "] with periodic ] followed by ]" was put forward by Cybulska prior to Schain's study.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cybulska |first=E. M. |year=2000 |title=The madness of Nietzsche: a misdiagnosis of the millennium? |journal=Hospital Medicine |volume=61 |issue=8 |pages=571–575 |doi=10.12968/hosp.2000.61.8.1403 |pmid=11045229}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schain |first=Richard |title=The Legend of Nietzsche's Syphilis |publisher=] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-313-31940-2 |location=Westport}}{{Page needed|date=September 2010}}</ref> ] suggested the slow growth of a right-sided retro-orbital ] as an explanation of Nietzsche's dementia;<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sax |first=Leonard |year=2003 |title=What was the cause of Nietzsche's dementia? |journal=Journal of Medical Biography |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=47–54 |doi=10.1177/096777200301100113 |pmid=12522502 |s2cid=6929185}}</ref> Orth and Trimble postulated ]<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Orth |first1=M. |last2=Trimble |first2=M. R. |year=2006 |title=Friedrich Nietzsche's mental illness – general paralysis of the insane vs. frontotemporal dementia |journal=Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica |volume=114 |issue=6 |pages=439–444; discussion 445 |doi=10.1111/j.1600-0447.2006.00827.x |pmid=17087793 |s2cid=25453044}}</ref> while other researchers have proposed a hereditary stroke disorder called ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hemelsoet |first1=D. |last2=Hemelsoet |first2=K. |last3=Devreese |first3=D. |date=March 2008 |title=The neurological illness of Friedrich Nietzsche |journal=Acta Neurologica Belgica |volume=108 |issue=1 |pages=9–16 |pmid=18575181}}</ref> Poisoning by ], a treatment for syphilis at the time of Nietzsche's death,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Dayan |first1=L. |last2=Ooi |first2=C. |date=October 2005 |title=Syphilis treatment: old and new |journal=Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy |volume=6 |issue=13 |pages=2271–2280 |doi=10.1517/14656566.6.13.2271 |pmid=16218887 |s2cid=6868863}}</ref> has also been suggested.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hammond |first=David |title=Mercury Poisoning: The Undiagnosed Epidemic |date=2013 |page=11}}</ref>

In 1898 and 1899, Nietzsche suffered at least two strokes. They partially paralysed him, leaving him unable to speak or walk. He likely suffered from clinical ]/hemiplegia on the left side of his body by 1899. After contracting ] in mid-August 1900, he had another stroke during the night of 24–25 August and died at about noon on 25 August.<ref>Concurring reports in Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche's biography (1904) and a letter by Mathilde Schenk-Nietzsche to ], 30 August 1900, quoted in Janz (1981) p. 221. Cf. Volz (1990), p. 251.</ref> Elisabeth had him buried beside his father at the church in ] near ]. His friend and secretary Gast gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: "Holy be your name to all future generations!"<ref>{{Cite web |last=Schain |first=Richard |title=Nietzsche's Visionary Values – Genius or Dementia? |url=http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_31.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060513011228/http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_31.html |archive-date=13 May 2006 |publisher=Philosophos}}</ref>

] in Germany.]]
] compiled '']'' from Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks and published it posthumously in 1901. Because his sister arranged the book based on her own conflation of several of Nietzsche's early outlines and took liberties with the material, the scholarly consensus has been that it does not reflect Nietzsche's intent. (For example, Elisabeth removed aphorism 35 of ''The Antichrist'', where Nietzsche rewrote a passage of the Bible.) Indeed, ], the editor of Nietzsche's '']'', called it a forgery.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Montinari |first=Mazzino |author-link=Mazzino Montinari |title=The 'Will to Power' Does Not Exist}}</ref>{{Incomplete short citation|date=September 2024}} Yet, the endeavour to rescue Nietzsche's reputation by discrediting ''The Will to Power'' often leads to scepticism about the value of his late notes, even of his whole ''Nachlass''. However, his ''Nachlass'' and ''The Will to Power'' are distinct.<ref name=":3" />

=== Citizenship, nationality, and ethnicity ===
General commentators and Nietzsche scholars, whether emphasising his cultural background or his language, overwhelmingly label Nietzsche as a "German philosopher."<ref name="SEP">{{Cite web |last=Anderson |first=R. Lanier |date=17 March 2017 |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ |website=] |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, ]}}</ref>{{sfn|Tanner|2000}}{{sfn|Magnus|1999}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Magnus |first1=Bernd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xeb80itrlRIC&q=%22German+philosopher%22+Nietzsche&pg=PA1 |title=The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche |last2=Higgins |first2=Kathleen Marie |publisher=] |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-521-36767-7 |page=1 |via=]}}</ref> Others do not assign him a national category.<ref>{{Cite book |title=] |date=2005 |publisher=] |editor-last=Craid |editor-first=Edward |location=Abingdon |pages=726–741}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Blackburn |first=Simon |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy |date=2005 |publisher=] |location=Oxford |pages=252–253}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/conciseencyclope00rejo_674 |title=The Concise encyclopedia of western philosophy |publisher=] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-415-32924-8 |editor-last=Rée |editor-first=Jonathan |edition=3rd |location=London |pages=–270 |orig-date=1960 |editor-last2=Urmson |editor-first2=J.O. |url-access=limited}}</ref> While Germany had not yet been unified into a single sovereign state, Nietzsche was born a citizen of ], which was mostly part of the ].<ref name="Mencken2008">{{Cite book |last=Mencken |first=Henry Louis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dyOwIOqoopkC&pg=PA11 |title=The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche |publisher=Wilder Publications |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-60459-331-0 |pages=11– |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121112014543/http://books.google.com/books?id=dyOwIOqoopkC&pg=PA11 |archive-date=12 November 2012 |url-status=dead |via=]}}</ref> His birthplace, ], is in the modern German state of ]. When he accepted his post at Basel, Nietzsche applied for annulment of his Prussian citizenship.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Janz |first=Curt Paul |title=Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie |date=1978 |publisher=] |volume=1 |location=Munich |page=263 |language=de |trans-title=Friedrich Nietzsche: Biography |quote=Er beantragte also bei der preussischen Behörde seine Expatriierung. |trans-quote=He accordingly applied to the Prussian authorities for expatrification.}}</ref> The official revocation of his citizenship came in a document dated 17 April 1869,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Colli |first1=Giorgio |author-link=Giorgio Colli |title=Nietzsche Briefwechsel |last2=Montinari |first2=Mazzino |author-link2=Mazzino Montinari |date=1993 |publisher=] |isbn=978-3-11-012277-0 |series=Kritische Gesamtausgabe |volume=4 |location=Berlin |page=566 |language=de |trans-title=Nietzsche Correspondence |chapter=Entlassungsurkunde für den Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche aus Naumburg |trans-chapter=Dismissal certificate for Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche from Naumburg}}</ref> and for the rest of his life he remained officially ].

], 1903–1904, at the ], Frankfurt]]
At least toward the end of his life, Nietzsche believed his ancestors were ].<ref name="Mencken1913">{{Cite book |last=Mencken |first=Henry Louis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_r71AzHvf64C&q=poland+polish&pg=PA6 |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=1913 |isbn=978-1-56000-649-7 |page=6 |via=]}}</ref> He wore a ] bearing the ], traceable back to ] of medieval times<ref name="nietzsche-radwan-ring">{{Cite web |last=Warberg |first=Ulla-Karin |title=Nietzsche's ring |url=http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170624204834/http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/ |archive-date=24 June 2017 |access-date=16 August 2018 |website=auktionsverket.com |publisher=] |quote=''Nietzsche's ring{{nbsp}}... it was worn by Friedrich Nietzsche and it represents the ancient Radwan coat of arms, which can be traced back to the Polish nobility of medieval times.'' |location=Östermalm, Stockholm}}</ref> and the surname "Nicki" of the Polish noble (]) family bearing that coat of arms.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Niesiecki |first1=Kasper |author-link=Kasper Niesiecki |title=Herbarz Polski Kaspra Niesieckiego S.J., powiększony dodatkami z poźniejszych autorów, rękopismów, dowodów urzędowych i wydany przez Jana Nep. Bobrowicza. |last2=Bobrowicz |first2=Jan Nepomucen |author-link2=Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz |publisher=] |year=1841 |volume=VIII |location=Leipzig, Germany |page=28 |language=pl |trans-title=Polish armorial of Kasper Niesiecki S.J., enlarged by additions from other authors, manuscripts, official proofs and published by Jan Nep. Bobrowicz. |chapter=Radwan Herb |trans-chapter=Radwan Coat of Arms |type=] genealogical and heraldic reference |quote=Herbowni ... Nicki, ... (Heraldic Family ... Nicki, ...) |orig-date=1728 |chapter-url=http://ebuw.uw.edu.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=165 |chapter-format=Online book}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Niesiecki |first1=Kasper |author-link=Kasper Niesiecki |last2=Bobrowicz |first2=Jan Nepomucen |author-link2=Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz |year=1845 |orig-date=1728 |title=Kasper Niesiecki, Herbarz Polski, wyd. J.N. Bobrowicz, Lipsk 1839–1845: herb Radwan (t. 8 s. 27–29) |url=http://wielcy.pl/niesiecki/herb/radwan/5066.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20180817062826/http://wielcy.pl/niesiecki/herb/radwan/5066.php |archive-date=17 August 2018 |access-date=17 August 2018 |website=wielcy.pl |publisher=Dr Minakowski Publikacje Elektroniczne |language=pl |type=] genealogical and heraldic reference |format=website |quote=Herbowni ... Nicki, ... (Heraldic Family ... Nicki, ...) |location=Kraków, Poland}}</ref> Gotard Nietzsche, a member of the Nicki family, left Poland for ]. His descendants later settled in the ] circa the year 1700.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Warberg |first=Ulla-Karin |title=Nietzsche's ring |url=http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170624204834/http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/ |archive-date=24 June 2017 |access-date=16 August 2018 |website=auktionsverket.com |publisher=] |quote=''In 1905, the Polish writer Bernhard Scharlitt in the spirit of Polish patriotism wrote an article about the Nietzsche family. In Herbarz Polski, a genealogy of Polish nobility, he had come across a note about a family named 'Nicki,' who could be traced back to Radwan. A member of this family named Gotard Nietzsche had left Poland for Prussia, and his descendants had eventually settled in Saxony around the year 1700.'' |location=Östermalm, Stockholm}}</ref> Nietzsche wrote in 1888, "My ancestors were Polish noblemen (Nietzky); the type seems to have been well preserved despite three generations of German mothers."{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=6}} At one point, Nietzsche became even more adamant about his Polish identity. "I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Appel |first=Fredrick |title=Nietzsche Contra Democracy |date=1998 |publisher=] |page=114}}</ref> On yet another occasion, Nietzsche stated, "Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.... I am proud of my Polish descent."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mencken |first=Henry Louis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nnEOAAAAIAAJ&q=Nietzsche+Polish&pg=PA6 |title=The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche |publisher=] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0722220511 |page=6 |orig-date=1908 |archive-url=https://archive.org/details/philosophyoffrie00menc/page/6/mode/2up |archive-date=2009-06-17 |url-status=live |via=]}}</ref> Nietzsche believed his name might have been ], in one letter claiming, "I was taught to ascribe the origin of my blood and name to Polish noblemen who were called Niëtzky and left their home and nobleness about a hundred years ago, finally yielding to unbearable suppression: they were ]."<ref>"Letter to Heinrich von Stein, December 1882." ''KGB'' III 1, Nr. 342, p. 287; ''KGW'' V 2, p. 579; ''KSA'' 9 p. 681</ref>

Most scholars dispute Nietzsche's account of his family's origins. Hans von Müller debunked the genealogy put forward by Nietzsche's sister in favour of Polish noble heritage.<ref>von Müller, Hans. 2002. "Nietzsche's Vorfahren" (reprint). ''Nietzsche-Studien'' 31:253–275. {{doi|10.1515/9783110170740.253}}</ref> ], Nietzsche's cousin and curator of the ] at ], argued that all of Nietzsche's ancestors bore German names, including the wives' families.{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=6}} Oehler claims that Nietzsche came from a long line of German ] clergymen on both sides of his family, and modern scholars regard the claim of Nietzsche's Polish ancestry as "pure invention."<ref name="mencken">{{Cite book |last=Mencken |first=Henry Louis |title=The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche |publisher=See Sharp Press |others=introd. & comm. Charles Q. Bufe |year=2003 |page=2}}</ref> Colli and Montinari, the editors of Nietzsche's assembled letters, gloss Nietzsche's claims as a "mistaken belief" and "without foundation."<ref>"Letter to Heinrich von Stein, December 1882," ''KGB'' III 7.1, p. 313.</ref><ref>"Letter to Georg Brandes, 10 April 1888," ''KGB'' III 7.3/1, p. 293.</ref> The name ''Nietzsche'' itself is not a Polish name, but an exceptionally common one throughout central Germany, in this and cognate forms (such as ''Nitsche'' and ''Nitzke''). The name derives from the forename ''Nikolaus,'' abbreviated to ''Nick''; assimilated with the Slavic ''Nitz''; it first became ''Nitsche'' and then ''Nietzsche''.{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=6}}

It is not known why Nietzsche wanted to be thought of as Polish nobility. According to biographer ], Nietzsche's propagation of the Polish ancestry myth may have been part of his "campaign against Germany."{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=6}} Nicholas D. More states that Nietzsche's claims of having an illustrious lineage were a parody on autobiographical conventions, and suspects ''Ecce Homo'', with its self-laudatory titles, such as "''Why I Am So Wise''", as being a work of satire.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=More |first=Nicholas D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JVAHAwAAQBAJ&q=nietzsche+polish+aristocracy+satire&pg=PA69 |title=Nietzsche's Last Laugh: Ecce Homo as Satire |publisher=] |year=2014 |isbn=978-1107050815 |page=69 |language=en |access-date=31 August 2021 |via=]}}</ref> He concludes that Nietzsche's supposed Polish genealogy was a joke—not a delusion.<ref name=":4" />

=== Relationships and sexuality ===
Nietzsche was never married. He proposed to ] three times and each time was rejected.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Leventhal |first=Robert S. |year=2001 |title=Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé: Chronicle of a Relationship 1882 |url=https://rsleve.people.wm.edu/FNLAS_1882.html |website=rsleve.people.wm.edu}}</ref> One theory blames Salomé's view on sexuality as one of the reasons for her alienation from Nietzsche. As articulated in her 1898 novella ''Fenitschka'', Salomé viewed the idea of sexual intercourse as prohibitive and marriage as a violation, with some suggesting that they indicated ] and ]<!-- "while others suggesting her homosexuality" – page number required -->.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Diethe |first=Carol |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2RAhAAAAQBAJ |title=Nietzsche's Women: Beyond the Whip |publisher=] |year=1996 |isbn=978-3-11-014819-0 |location=Berlin |page=56 |via=]}}</ref> Reflecting on ], Nietzsche considered that "indispensable ... to the lover is his unrequited love, which he would at no price relinquish for a state of indifference".{{efn-lr|This is how R. B. Pippin describes Nietzsche's views in ''The Persistence of Subjectivity'' (2005), p. 326.}}

Deussen cited the episode of ]'s brothel in February 1865 as instrumental to understanding the philosopher's way of thinking, mostly about women. Nietzsche was surreptitiously accompanied to a "call house" from which he clumsily escaped upon seeing "a half dozen apparitions dressed in sequins and veils." According to Deussen, Nietzsche "never decided to remain unmarried all his life. For him, women had to sacrifice themselves to the care and benefit of men."<ref name=":2" /> Nietzsche scholar {{interlanguage link|Joachim Köhler|de|Joachim Köhler (Philosoph)}} has attempted to explain Nietzsche's life history and philosophy by claiming that he was homosexual. Köhler argues that Nietzsche's supposed syphilis, which is "...{{nbsp}}usually considered to be the product of his encounter with a prostitute in a brothel in ] or ], is equally likely. Some maintain that Nietzsche contracted it in a male brothel in ]."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Köhler |first=Joachim |title=Zarathustra's secret: the interior life of Friedrich Nietzsche |publisher=] |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-300-09278-3 |location=New Haven, Conn. |page=xv}}</ref> The acquisition of the infection from a homosexual brothel was the theory believed by ], who cited Otto Binswanger as his source.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Golomb |first=Jacob |url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschejewishc00golo_034 |title=Nietzsche and Jewish Culture |publisher=] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-415-09512-9 |location=London |page= |url-access=limited}}</ref> Köhler also suggests that Nietzsche had a romantic relationship, as well as a friendship, with ].<ref name="Megill" /> There is the claim that Nietzsche's homosexuality was widely known in the ], with Nietzsche's friend ] claiming that "he was a man who had never touched a woman."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pletsch |first=Carl |url=https://archive.org/details/youngnietzschebe00plet |title=Young Nietzsche: Becoming a Genius |publisher=The Free Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-02-925042-6 |location=New York |page= |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Small |first=Robin |title=Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship |publisher=] |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-927807-7 |location=Oxford |page=207}}</ref>

Köhler's views have not found wide acceptance among Nietzsche scholars and commentators. Allan Megill argues that, while Köhler's claim that Nietzsche was conflicted about his homosexual desire cannot simply be dismissed, "the evidence is very weak," and Köhler may be projecting twentieth-century understandings of sexuality on nineteenth-century notions of friendship.<ref name="Megill">{{Cite journal |last=Megill |first=Allan |date=1 March 1996 |title=Historicizing Nietzsche? Paradoxes and Lessons of a Hard Case |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/245288 |journal=The Journal of Modern History |volume=68 |issue=1 |pages=114–152 |doi=10.1086/245288 |issn=0022-2801 |s2cid=147507428}}</ref> It is also rumoured that Nietzsche frequented ] brothels.<ref name=":0" /> ] and ] have argued that continuous sickness and headaches hindered Nietzsche from engaging much with women. Yet they offer other examples in which Nietzsche expressed his affections to women, including Wagner's wife ].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rogers |first1=N. |title=] |last2=Thompson |first2=M. |date=2004 |publisher=] |location=London}}</ref>

Other scholars have argued that Köhler's sexuality-based interpretation is not helpful in understanding Nietzsche's philosophy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Grenke |first=Michael W. |year=2003 |title=How Boring... |journal=The Review of Politics |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=152–154 |doi=10.1017/s0034670500036640 |jstor=1408799 |s2cid=145631903}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Risse |first=Mathias |date=13 January 2003 |title=Zarathustra's Secret. The Interior Life of Friedrich Nietzsche |url=http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23249-zarathustra-s-secret-the-interior-life-of-friedrich-nietzsche/ |journal=Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews}}</ref> However, there are also those who stress that, if Nietzsche preferred men—with this preference constituting his ] make-up—but could not admit his desires to himself, it meant he acted in conflict with his philosophy.{{sfn|Clark|2015|p=154}}


== Philosophy == == Philosophy ==
{{Main|Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche}}


Because of Nietzsche's evocative style and provocative ideas, his philosophy generates passionate reactions. His works remain controversial, due to varying interpretations and misinterpretations. In Western philosophy, Nietzsche's writings have been described as a case of free revolutionary thought, that is, revolutionary in its structure and problems, although not tied to any revolutionary project.<ref name="Bennett2001">{{Cite book |last=Benjamin Bennett |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AVYbszVKUO4C&pg=PA184 |title=Goethe As Woman: The Undoing of Literature |publisher=Wayne State University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8143-2948-1 |page=184 |access-date=3 January 2013}}</ref> His writings have also been described as a revolutionary project in which his philosophy serves as the foundation of a European cultural rebirth.{{sfn|Young|2010}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bowman |first=William |title=Friedrich Nietzsche: Herald of a New Era |publisher=Hazar Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-9975703-0-4}}</ref>
{{main|Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche}}
]


=== Apollonian and Dionysian ===
Of major philosophers, Nietzsche has generated possibly the least consensus. One can readily identify his key concepts, but the meaning of each, let alone the relative significance of each, remains hotly contested. Nietzsche famously claimed that "]", and this death either results in radical ] or compels one to confront the fact that truth had always been perspectival. Nietzsche also distinguished between ], the former arising from a celebration of life, the latter the result of '']'' at those capable of the former. This distinction becomes in summary the difference between "good and bad" on the one hand, and "good and evil" on the other; importantly, the "good" man of the master morality equates to the "evil" man of the slave morality.
{{Main|Apollonian and Dionysian}}


The ''Apollonian and Dionysian'' is a two-fold philosophical concept based on two figures in ancient Greek mythology, ] and ]. This relationship takes the form of a ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schrift |first=Alan D. |title=Deleuze Becoming Nietzsche Becoming Spinoza Becoming Deleuze |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/philtoday200650supplement23 |journal=] |volume=50 |year=2006 |pages=187–194 |doi=10.5840/philtoday200650supplement23 |issn=0031-8256}}</ref> Even though the concept is related to '']'', the poet ] had already spoken of it, and ] had talked of ].
The rise of morality and of moral disputes thus becomes a matter of ]; Nietzsche's perspectivism likewise reduces ] to psychology. One of the most recurrent themes in Nietzsche's work, therefore, emerges as the "]". At a minimum, Nietzsche claims for the will to power that it describes ] ] more compellingly than ]nic ], ] "will to live," or ]'s ] account of morality, among others; to go beyond this would involve interpretation.


Nietzsche found in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that ] the pessimism found in the so-called ]. The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering depicted by characters on stage, passionately and joyously affirmed life, finding it worth living. The main theme in '']'' is that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian ''Kunsttriebe'' ("artistic impulses") forms dramatic arts or tragedies. He argued that this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek ]. Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the ], whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity (hence the omission of the principle of individuation). Nietzsche used these two forces because, for him, the world of mind and order on one side, and passion and chaos on the other, formed principles that were fundamental to the ]:<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nietzsche, Dionysus and Apollo |url=http://www.historyguide.org/europe/dio_apollo.html |website=www.historyguide.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Desmond |first=Kathleen K. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iP4sA3kwcFsC&q=Jim+Morrison+Apollonian+and+Dionysian&pg=PA69 |title=Ideas About Art |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4443-9600-3 |via=]}}</ref> the Apollonian a dreaming state, full of illusions; and Dionysian a state of intoxication, representing the liberations of instinct and dissolution of boundaries. In this mould, a man appears as the ]. He is the horror of the annihilation of the principle of ] and at the same time someone who delights in its destruction.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nietzsche's Apollonianism and Dionysiansism: Meaning and Interpretation |url=https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/creationofknowledge/apollonianism-dyonysianisism.html |website=bachelorandmaster.com}}</ref>
Much of Nietzsche's philosophy has a ]al flavour to it, and much criticism of his work has arisen from the fact that "he does not have a system". However, Nietzsche himself expressed a general disdain for philosophy as the construction of systems — indeed, he says (for example) in the preface of '']'' that many systems built by dogmatist philosophers have relied more on popular prejudices (such as the idea of a ]) than anything else. Concepts still associated with a more constructive project include the '']'' (variously translated as ''superman'', ''superhuman'', or in the way most philosophers refer to it today, ''overman'') and the ] (or eternal recurrence). Nietzsche posits the overman as a goal that humanity can achieve for itself, or that an individual can set for himself.


Apollonian and Dionysian juxtapositions appear in the interplay of tragedy: the tragic hero of the drama, the main protagonist, struggles to make (Apollonian) order of his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) fate, though he dies unfulfilled. Elaborating on the conception of ] as an intellectual who cannot make up his mind, and is a living ] to the man of action, Nietzsche argues that a Dionysian figure possesses the knowledge that his actions cannot change the eternal balance of things, and it disgusts him enough not to act at all. Hamlet falls under this category—he glimpsed the supernatural reality through the Ghost; he has gained true knowledge and knows that no action of his has the power to change this. For the audience of such drama, this tragedy allows them to sense what Nietzsche called the ''Primordial Unity'', which revives Dionysian nature. He describes primordial unity as the increase of strength, the experience of fullness and plenitude bestowed by ]. Frenzy acts as intoxication and is crucial for the ] condition that enables the creation of any art.{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}} Stimulated by this state, a person's artistic will is enhanced:
Nietzsche contrasts the ''Übermensch'' with the Last Man, who appears as an exaggerated version of the degraded "goal" that ] or ] society sets for itself. Both the ''Übermensch'' and the ''eternal return'' feature heavily in '']''. (Scholars also disagree about the interpretation of the ''eternal return''.)


<blockquote>In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever wills is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power—until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is—art.</blockquote>
== Works ==
{{main|List of works by Friedrich Nietzsche}}


Nietzsche is adamant that the works of ] and ] represent the apex of artistic creation, the true realisation of tragedy; it is with ], that tragedy begins its ''Untergang'' (literally 'going under' or 'downward-way;' meaning decline, deterioration, downfall, death, etc.). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' use of ] and ] in his tragedies, claiming that the infusion of ethics and ] robs tragedy of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the Dionysian and Apollonian. ] emphasised reason to such a degree that he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human knowledge. ] continued along this path in his dialogues, and the modern world eventually inherited reason at the expense of artistic impulses found in the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy. He notes that without the Apollonian, the Dionysian lacks the form and structure to make a coherent piece of art, and without the Dionysian, the Apollonian lacks the necessary vitality and passion. Only the fertile interplay of these two forces brought together as an art represented the best of Greek tragedy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SparkNotes: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): The Birth of Tragedy |url=https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/nietzsche/section1/ |website=sparknotes.com}}</ref>
===''The Birth of Tragedy''===
{{main|The Birth of Tragedy}}
Nietzsche published his first book in 1872 as ''The Birth of Tragedy, Out of the Spirit of Music (Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik)'' and reissued it in 1886 as ''The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism (Die Geburt der Tragödie, Oder: Griechentum und Pessimismus)''. The later edition contained a prefatory essay, ''An Attempt at Self-Criticism'', wherein Nietzsche commented on this very early work.


An example of the impact of this idea can be seen in the book ''Patterns of Culture'', where anthropologist ] acknowledges Nietzschean opposites of "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" as the stimulus for her thoughts about ]s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benedict |first=Ruth |author-link=Ruth Benedict |url=http://classes.yale.edu/03-04/anth500b/projects/project_sites/02_alexy/ruthpatterns.html |title=Patterns of Culture |access-date=17 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120414224516/http://classes.yale.edu/03-04/anth500b/projects/project_sites/02_Alexy/ruthpatterns.html |archive-date=14 April 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> ] has written extensively on the dichotomy in '']''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jung |first=Carl |title=Psychological Types |chapter=The Apollonian and the Dionysian}}</ref> ] commented that his own book '']'' should be read "under the sun of the great Nietzschean inquiry". Here Foucault referenced Nietzsche's description of the birth and death of tragedy and his explanation that the subsequent tragedy of the Western world was the refusal of the tragic and, with that, refusal of the sacred.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mahon |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4aNoFpNfYeMC&q=foucault+genealogy&pg=PA1 |title=Foucault's Nietzschean Genealogy |publisher=SUNY Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-7914-1149-0}}</ref> Painter ] was influenced by Nietzsche's view of tragedy presented in ''The Birth of Tragedy.''
In contrast to the typically ] view of ancient Greek culture as noble, simple, elegant and grandiose,<ref>Johann Winckelmann, ''History of Ancient Art'', 1764</ref> Nietzsche characterizes it as a conflict between two distinct tendencies - the ]. The Apollonian in culture he sees as the ''principium individuationis'' (principle of ]) with its refinement, sobriety and emphasis on superficial appearance, whereby man separates himself from the undifferentiated immediacy of nature. Immersion into that same wholeness characterizes the Dionysian, recognizable by intoxication, non-rationality and inhumanity; this shows the influence of ]'s view that non-rational forces underlie human creativity. Nietzsche describes how from ] onward the Apollonian had dominated Western thought, and raises ] (especially ]) as a possible re-introduction of the Dionysian to the salvation of European culture.


=== Perspectivism ===
] criticised ''The Birth of Tragedy'' heavily. By 1886, Nietzsche himself had reservations about the work, referring to it as "an impossible book . . . badly written, ponderous, embarrassing, image-mad and image-confused, sentimental, saccharine to the point of effeminacy, uneven in tempo, without the will to logical cleanliness."
{{Main|Perspectivism}}


Nietzsche claimed the ] would eventually lead to the realisation that there can never be a universal perspective on things and that the traditional idea of ] is incoherent.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yockey |first=Francis |title=Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics |publisher=The Palingenesis Project (Wermod and Wermod Publishing Group) |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-9561835-7-6}}</ref>{{sfn|Lampert|1986|pp=17–18}}{{Sfn |Heidegger}}{{Incomplete short citation|date=September 2024}} Nietzsche rejected the idea of objective reality, arguing that knowledge is ] and conditional, relative to various fluid perspectives or interests.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cox |first=Christoph |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TxlMccAak4wC&q=Objective |title=Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation |publisher=University of California Press |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-520-92160-3 |via=]}}</ref> This leads to constant reassessment of rules (i.e., those of philosophy, the scientific method, etc.) according to the circumstances of individual perspectives.{{sfn|Schacht|1983|p=61}} This view has acquired the name '']''.
=== ''Untimely Meditations'' ===
{{Summarystyle-section}}
{{main|The Untimely Meditations}}


In '']'', Nietzsche proclaimed that a table of values hangs above every great person. He pointed out that what is common among different peoples is the act of esteeming, of creating values, even if the values are different from one person to the next. Nietzsche asserted that what made people great was not the content of their beliefs, but the act of valuing. Thus the values a community strives to articulate are not as important as the collective will to see those values come to pass. The willingness is more essential than the merit of the goal itself, according to Nietzsche. "A thousand goals have there been so far", says Zarathustra, "for there are a thousand peoples. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking: the one goal is lacking. Humanity still has no goal." Hence, the title of the aphorism, "On The Thousand And One Goal". The idea that one value-system is no more worthy than the next, although it may not be directly ascribed to Nietzsche, has become a common premise in modern social science. ] and ] absorbed it and made it their own. It shaped their philosophical and cultural endeavours, as well as their political understanding. Weber, for example, relied on Nietzsche's perspectivism by maintaining that objectivity is still possible—but only after a particular perspective, value, or end has been established.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steve |first=Hoenisch |url=http://www.criticism.com/md/weber1.html |title=Max Weber's View of Objectivity in Social Science}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nobre |first=Renarde Freire |year=2006 |title=Culture and perspectivism in Nietzsche's and Weber's view |journal=Teoria & Sociedade |volume=2 |issue=SE |page=0 |doi=10.1590/S1518-44712006000200006 |doi-broken-date=13 November 2024 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
Started in 1873 and completed in 1876, this work comprises a collection of four (out of a projected 13) essays concerning the contemporary condition of European, especially German, culture. A fifth essay, published posthumously, had the title "We Philologists", and gave as a "''Task for philology'': disappearance".<ref name=Most>
Glenn W. Most, , HyperNietzsche, 2003-11-09 {{en icon}}</ref>
:# ''David Strauss: der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller'', 1873 (''David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer'') attacks ]'s ''The Old and the New Faith: A Confession'' (1871), which Nietzsche holds up as an example of the German thought of the time. He paints Strauss's "New Faith" - scientifically-determined universal mechanism based on the progression of history - as a vulgar reading of history in the service of a degenerate culture, ]ally attacking not only the book but also Strauss as a ] of pseudo-culture.
:# ''Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben'', 1874 (''On the Use and Abuse of History for Life'') offers — instead of the prevailing view of "knowledge as an end in itself" — an alternative way of reading history, one where living life becomes the primary concern; along with a description of how this might improve the health of a society. It also introduced an attack against the basic precepts of classic humanism. In this essay, Nietzsche attacks both the historicism of man (the idea that man is created through history) and the idea that one can possibly have an objective concept of man, since a major aspect of man resides in his subjectivity. Nietzsche expands the idea that the essence of man dwells not inside of him, but rather above him, in the following essay, "Schopenhauer als Erzieher" ("Schopenhauer as Educator"). Glenn Most argues for the possible translation of the essay as "The Use and Abuse of History Departments for Life", as Nietzsche used the term '']'' and not '']''. Furthermore, he alleges that this title may have its origins via ], who would have referred to ]'s treatise, ''De commodis litterarum atque incommodis'' (1428 — "On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Literary Studies"). Glenn Most argues that the untimelessness of Nietzsche here resides in calling to a return, beyond historicism, to ]'s humanism, and, maybe even beyond, to the first humanism of the ].<ref name=Most/>
:# ''Schopenhauer als Erzieher'', 1874 (''Schopenhauer as Educator'') describes how the philosophic genius of ] might bring on a resurgence of German culture. Nietzsche gives special attention to Schopenhauer's individualism, honesty and steadfastness as well as his cheerfulness, despite Schopenhauer's noted pessimism.
:# ''Richard Wagner in Bayreuth'', 1876 investigates ]'s psychology — less flatteringly than Nietzsche's friendship with his subject might suggest. Nietzsche considered not publishing it because of this, and eventually settled on drafts that criticized the musician less than they might have done. Nonetheless this essay foreshadows the imminent split between the two.


Among his critique of traditional philosophy of ], ], and ] in '']'', Nietzsche attacked the '']'' and '']'' ("I think, therefore I am") as ] beliefs based on naive acceptance of previous notions and ].<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.monomorphic.org/wordpress/objective-and-subjective-reality-perspectivism/ |title=Objective and subjective reality; perspectivism |year=2011 |access-date=23 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130524061713/http://www.monomorphic.org/wordpress/objective-and-subjective-reality-perspectivism/ |archive-date=24 May 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Philosopher ] put Nietzsche in a high place in the history of philosophy. While criticising nihilism and Nietzsche together as a sign of general decay,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Solomon |first=Robert C. |author-link=Robert C. Solomon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3JA3vyj4slsC&q=Alasdair+MacIntyre+Nietzsche+Kant&pg=PA108 |title=From Hegel to Existentialism |publisher=Oup USA |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-19-506182-6 |via=]}}</ref> he still commended him for recognising psychological motives behind Kant and ]'s moral philosophy:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=Mark C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TN7sop-yILMC&q=Alasdair+MacIntyre+Nietzsche+Kant&pg=PA136 |title=Alasdair MacIntyre |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-521-79381-0 |via=]}}</ref>
=== ''Human, All Too Human'' ===
{{main|Human, All Too Human}}


<blockquote>For it was Nietzsche's historic achievement to understand more clearly than any other philosopher ... not only that what purported to be appeals of ] were in fact expressions of subjective will, but also the nature of the problems that this posed for philosophy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lutz |first=Christopher Stephen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z9RaG9ccs44C&q=Alasdair+MacIntyre+Nietzsche+Kant&pg=PA37 |title=Tradition in the ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-7391-4148-9 |via=]}}</ref></blockquote>
Nietzsche supplemented the original edition of this work, first published in 1878, with a second part in 1879: ''Mixed Opinions and Maxims (Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche)'', and a third part in 1880: ''The Wanderer and his Shadow (Der Wanderer und sein Schatten)''. The three parts appeared together in 1886 as ''Human, All Too Human, A Book for Free Spirits (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, Ein Buch für freie Geister)''. This book represents the beginning of Nietzsche's "middle period", with a break from ] and from ] and with a definite ] slant. Note the style: reluctant to construct a systemic philosophy, Nietzsche composed these works as a series of several hundred aphorisms, either single lines or one or two pages. This book comprises more a collection of debunkings of unwarranted assumptions than an interpretation, though it offers some elements of Nietzsche's thought in his arguments: he uses his ] and the idea of ] as explanatory devices, though the latter remains less developed than in his later thought.


=== ''Daybreak'' === === Slave revolt in morals ===
{{Main|Master–slave morality}}


In '']'' and '']'', Nietzsche's ] account of the development of modern moral systems occupies a central place. For Nietzsche, a fundamental shift took place during the human history from thinking in terms of "good and bad" toward "good and evil".
In ''Daybreak: Reflections on Moral Prejudices (Morgenröte. Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurteile'', 1881), Nietzsche de-emphasizes the role of hedonism as a motivator and accentuates the role of a "feeling of power". His ], both ] and ], and his critique of Christianity also reaches greater maturity. With this aphoristic book in its clear, calm and intimate style Nietzsche seems to invite a particular experience, rather than showing concern with persuading his readers to accept any point of view. He would develop many of the ideas advanced here more fully in later books.


The initial form of morality was set by a warrior ] and other ruling castes of ancient civilisations. Aristocratic values of good and bad coincided with and reflected their relationship to lower ]s such as slaves. Nietzsche presented this "master morality" as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with ]ic Greece.<ref name="LacewingSlave">{{Cite web |last1=Nietzsche |first1=Friedrich |last2=Lacewing |first2=Michael |title=Nietzsche on master and slave morality |url=http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/A2/Nietzsche/NietzscheMasterSlave.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510060210/http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/A2/Nietzsche/NietzscheMasterSlave.pdf |archive-date=10 May 2016 |access-date=29 September 2019 |website=Amazon Online Web Services |publisher=], Taylor & Francis Group}}</ref> To be "good" was to be happy and to have the things related to happiness: wealth, strength, health, power, etc. To be "bad" was to be like the slaves over whom the aristocracy ruled: poor, weak, sick, pathetic—objects of pity or disgust rather than hatred.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nietzsche, "Master and Slave Morality" |url=https://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/notes-nietzsche.html#1. |access-date=28 September 2019 |website=philosophy.lander.edu}}</ref>
=== ''The Gay Science'' ===
{{main|The Gay Science}}


"Slave morality" developed as a reaction to master morality. Value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and submission; while evil is worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive. Nietzsche saw slave morality as pessimistic and fearful, its values emerging to improve the self-perception of slaves. He associated slave morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions, as it is born out of the '']'' of slaves. Nietzsche argued that the idea of equality allowed slaves to overcome their own conditions without despising themselves. By denying the inherent inequality of people—in success, strength, beauty, and intelligence—slaves acquired a method of escape, namely by generating new values on the basis of rejecting master morality, which frustrated them. It was used to overcome the slave's sense of inferiority before their (better-off) masters. It does so by depicting slave weakness, for example, as a matter of choice, by relabelling it as "meekness". The "good man" of master morality is precisely the "evil man" of slave morality, while the "bad man" is recast as the "good man".<ref name="LacewingSlave" />
''The Gay Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft'', 1882), the largest and most comprehensive of Nietzsche's middle-period books, continues the aphoristic style and contains more poetry than any other of his works. It has central themes of a joyful affirmation of life and of an immersion in a light-hearted scholarship that takes aesthetic pleasure in life (the title refers to the ] phrase for the craft of poetry). As an example, Nietzsche offers the doctrine of ], which ranks one's life as the sole consideration when evaluating how one should act. This contrasts with the Christian view of an ] which emphasizes later reward at the cost of one's immediate happiness. ''The Gay Science'' has however perhaps become best known for the statement "]", which forms part of Nietzsche's naturalistic and aesthetic alternative to traditional religion.


Nietzsche saw slave morality as a source of the nihilism that has overtaken Europe. Modern Europe and Christianity exist in a hypocritical state due to a tension between master and slave morality, both contradictory values determining, to varying degrees, the values of most Europeans (who are "]"). Nietzsche called for exceptional people not to be ashamed in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which he deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. He cautioned, however, that morality, per se, is not bad; it is good for the masses and should be left to them. Exceptional people, in contrast, should follow their own "inner law".<ref name="LacewingSlave" /> A favourite motto of Nietzsche, taken from ], reads: "Become what you are."<ref name="KYLook">{{Cite web |last=Look |first=Brandon |title='Becoming Who One Is' in Spinoza and Nietzsche |url=http://www.uky.edu/~look/essays/Spinoza&Nietzsche.pdf |access-date=28 September 2019 |website=uky.edu |publisher=]}}</ref>
=== ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' ===
{{main|Thus Spoke Zarathustra}}


A long-standing assumption about Nietzsche is that he preferred master over slave morality. However, eminent Nietzsche scholar ] rejected this interpretation, writing that Nietzsche's analyses of these two types of morality were used only in a ] and historic sense; they were not meant for any kind of acceptance or glorification.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Walter Arnold |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wvKRUSdUsnkC&q=Master+slave+morality&pg=PA213 |title=From Shakespeare to existentialism |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1980 |isbn=978-0-691-01367-1 |via=]}}</ref> On the other hand, Nietzsche called master morality "a higher order of values, the noble ones, those that say Yes to life, those that guarantee the future".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |title=Ecce Homo |year=1908 |page=Chapter on The Case of Wagner, section 2}}</ref> Just as "there is an order of rank between man and man", there is also an order of rank "between morality and morality".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |title=Beyond Good and Evil |year=1886 |page=Section 228}}</ref> Nietzsche waged a philosophic war against the slave morality of Christianity in his "revaluation of all values" to bring about the victory of a new master morality that he called the "philosophy of the future" (''Beyond Good and Evil'' is subtitled ''Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future'').<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bowman |first=William |title=Friedrich Nietzsche: Herald of a New Era |publisher=Hazar Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-9975703-0-4 |pages=31–38, 60–106}}</ref>
A break with his middle-period works, ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A Book for All and None (Also Sprach Zarathustra, Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen'', 1883 - 1885) became Nietzsche's best-known book and the one he considered the most important.<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" in the chapter "Why I Write Such Good Books" in ''Ecce Homo'', 1888</ref> Noteworthy for its format, it comprises a philosophical work of fiction whose style often lightheartedly imitates that of the ] and of the ], at times resembling ] works in tone and in its use of natural phenomena as rhetorical and explanatory devices. It also features frequent references to the Western literary and philosophical traditions, implicitly offering an interpretation of these traditions and of their problems. Nietzsche achieves all of this through the character of ] (referring to the traditional prophet of ]), who makes speeches on philosophic topics as he moves along a loose plotline marking his development and the reception of his ideas. One can view this characteristic (following the genre of the '']'') as an inline commentary on Zarathustra (and Nietzsche's) philosophy. All this, along with the book's ambiguity and paradoxical nature, has helped its eventual enthusiastic reception by the reading public, but has frustrated academic attempts at analysis (as Nietzsche may have intended); and ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' remained for long unpopular as a topic for scholars (especially those in the Anglo-American ]), until the second half of the twentieth century brought widespread interest in Nietzsche and his unconventional style that does not distinguish between philosophy and literature.<ref>
Behler, Ernst, ''Nietzsche in the Twentieth Century'' in ''The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche'', Magnus and Higgins (ed), Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 281-319
</ref>
It offers formulations of ], and Nietzsche for the first time speaks of the '']'': themes that would dominate his books from this point onwards.


In '']'', Nietzsche began his "Campaign against Morality".{{sfn|Kaufmann|1974|p=187}}{{sfn|Nietzsche|1888d|loc=M I}} He called himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticised the prominent moral philosophies of his day: Christianity, ], and ]. Nietzsche's concept "]" applies to the doctrines of ], though not to all other faiths: he claimed that ] is a successful religion that he complimented for fostering critical thought.{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=26}} Still, Nietzsche saw his philosophy as a counter-movement to nihilism through appreciation of art:
=== ''Beyond Good and Evil'' ===
{{main|Beyond Good and Evil}}


{{blockquote|text=Art as the single superior counterforce against all will to negation of life, art as the anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, anti-Nihilist par excellence.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web |title=Art in Nietzsche's philosophy |url=http://jorbon.tripod.com/niet01.html |website=jorbon.tripod.com}}</ref>|sign=|source=}}
Of the four "late-period" writings of Nietzsche, ''Beyond Good and Evil, Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (Jenseits von Gut und Böse. Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft'', 1886) most closely resembles the aphoristic style of his middle period. Therein he identifies the qualities of genuine philosophers: imagination, self-assertion, danger, originality and the "creation of values" - all else he considers incidental. Continuing from this he contests some key pre-suppositions such as "self-consciousness", "knowledge", "truth" and "free will" as used by some of the great representatives of the philosophic tradition. Instead of these traditional analyses, which Nietzsche paints as insufficient, he offers the will to power as an explanatory device, being part of his "perspective of life" which he regards as "beyond good and evil", denying a universal morality for all human beings. The ] feature prominently as Nietzsche re-evaluates deeply-held ] beliefs, portraying even domination, appropriation and injury to the weak as not universally objectionable. A tone of ] and ] dominates throughout.


Nietzsche claimed that the Christian faith as practised was not a proper representation of Jesus' teachings, as it forced people merely to believe in the way of Jesus but not to act as Jesus did; in particular, his example of refusing to judge people, something that Christians constantly did.{{Sfn |Sedgwick |2009 |p=26}} He condemned institutionalised Christianity for emphasising a morality of ] (''Mitleid''), which assumes an inherent illness in society:{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=27}}
=== ''On the Genealogy of Morality'' ===
{{blockquote|text=Christianity is called the religion of ''pity''. Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength in which suffering as such inflicts on life is still further increased and multiplied by pity. Pity makes suffering contagious.<ref>''The Antichrist'', section 7. transl. Walter Kaufmann, in ''The Portable Nietzsche'', 1977, pp. 572–573.</ref>}}
{{main|On the Genealogy of Morality}}


In '']'' Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems based on a dichotomy of ] a "calamitous error",{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888d |loc=Why I Am a Destiny, §&nbsp;3}} and wished to initiate a ] of the ] of the Christian world.{{sfn|Nietzsche|1888c|pp=4, 8, 18, 29, 37, 40, 51, 57, 59}} He indicated his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.
The three "treatises" that make up ''On the Genealogy of Morality'' (''Zur Genealogie der Moral'', 1887) represent the last of Nietzsche's works before his flurry of activity in 1888. Each treatise is concerned with tracing the evolution of moral concepts and institutions, and showing that the origins of contemporary morality are in non-moral relationships in which power struggles and cruelty play an important part. The work appears more unproblematically philosophical in style and tone than many of his works. For this reason this book has become a popular topic for scholarly analysis.<ref>
''The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche'' alone contains five essays (excluding the one that gives overviews of each of his works and forms one of the main references for this section) that discusses this book at length:
* ], ''Nietzsche's Alleged Farewell: The Premodern, Modern and Postmodern Nietzsche''
* Salaquarda, Jörg, ''Nietzsche and the Judeo-Christian Tradition''
* Schrift, Alan D., ''Nietzsche's French Legacy''
* Solomon, Robert C., ''Nietzsche's 'Ad Hominem': Perspectivism, Personality and 'Ressentiment' Revisited''
* Strong, Tracy B., ''Nietzsche's Political Misappropriation''
</ref>


While Nietzsche attacked the principles of Judaism, he was not ]: in his work '']'', he explicitly condemned antisemitism and pointed out that his attack on Judaism was not an attack on contemporary Jewish people but specifically an attack upon the ancient Jewish priesthood who he claimed ] paradoxically based their views upon.{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=69}} An Israeli historian who performed a statistical analysis of everything Nietzsche wrote about Jews claims that cross-references and context make clear that 85% of the negative comments are attacks on Christian doctrine or, sarcastically, on Richard Wagner.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}
In the First Treatise Nietzsche traces Christian morality to what he calls the "slave revolt in morality", which is born of the '']'' experienced by the weak members of society in respect of their strong, aristocratic masters. The morality of the nobles operates with the value-distinction "good/bad", viewing themselves as evidently good and their inferiors as below contempt. The slaves find their subjection to the strong intolerable and thus set up an "imaginary revenge" by labelling the strong as evil and themselves as good, thereby instituting the morality of Christianity, according to which the meek shall inherit the earth.
In the Second Treatise Nietzsche sketches a pre-moral society (what he calls a "morality of custom") in which the right to inflict harm on others emerges from man's capacity, as an animal capable of memory, of making promises. The breaking of promises is compensated by the infliction of harm on the transgressor. It is in this way, according to Nietzsche, that the institution of punishment comes about, free from any moral purpose or justification. "Bad conscience", too, originates in a pre-moral situation. Here man's violent animal nature is turned on himself once he is no longer free to roam and pillage.
In the Third Treatise Nietzsche considers the many ways in which the "ascetic ideal" (the paradigm of Christian morality) has manifested itself, ever taking on new forms and perpetuating itself by "underground" means. Nietzsche suggests that the "will to power" is what drives the need to hold on to the ascetic ideal in one form or another, as a surrogate for taking revenge on a hostile world.


Nietzsche felt that modern antisemitism was "despicable" and contrary to European ideals.{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=68}} Its cause, in his opinion, was the growth in European nationalism and the endemic "jealousy and hatred" of Jewish success.{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=68}} He wrote that Jews should be thanked for helping uphold a respect for the philosophies of ancient Greece,{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=68}} and for giving rise to "the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (]), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world".<ref name="Nebraska">{{Cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |title=]: A Book for Free Spirits |date=1986 |publisher=] |page=231 |orig-date=1878}}</ref>
=== ''The Case of Wagner'' ===
{{main|The Case of Wagner}}


=== Death of God and nihilism ===
In his first book of a highly productive year, ''The Case of Wagner, A Musician's Problem (Der Fall Wagner, Ein Musikanten-Problem'', May - August 1888), Nietzsche launches into a devastating and unbridled attack upon the figure of ]. While he recognizes Wagner's music as an immense cultural achievement, he also characterizes it as the product of decadence and ] and thereby of sickness. The book shows Nietzsche as a capable music-critic, and provides the setting for some of his further reflections on the nature of art and on its relationship to the future health of humanity.
{{Main|God is dead|Nihilism}}


The statement "God is dead," occurring in several of Nietzsche's works (notably in '']''), has become one of his best-known remarks. On the basis of it, many commentators<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morgan |first=George Allen |title=What Nietzsche Means |publisher=] |year=1941 |isbn=978-0-8371-7404-4 |location=Cambridge, MA |page=36}}</ref> regard Nietzsche as an ]; others (such as Kaufmann) suggest that this statement might reflect a more subtle understanding of divinity. Scientific developments and the increasing ] of Europe had effectively 'killed' the ] God, who had served as the basis for meaning and value in the West for more than a thousand years. The death of God may lead beyond bare perspectivism to outright ], the belief that nothing has any inherent importance and that life lacks purpose. While Nietzsche rejected the traditional Christian morality and theology, he also rejected the nihilism which many thought was the only alternative to it.
=== ''Twilight of the Idols'' ===
{{main|Twilight of the Idols}}


Nietzsche believed that Christian moral doctrine was originally constructed to counteract nihilism. It provides people with traditional beliefs about the ]s of good and evil, belief in God (whose existence one might appeal to in ] the evil in the world), and a framework with which one might claim to have ]. In constructing a world where objective knowledge is supposed to be possible, Christianity is an antidote to a primal form of nihilism—the despair of meaninglessness. As ] put the problem, "If God as the supra sensory ground and goal of all reality is dead if the supra sensory world of the ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory and above it its vitalising and upbuilding power, then nothing more remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient himself."{{sfn|Heidegger|p=61}}{{Incomplete short citation|date=September 2024}}
The title of this highly ]al book, ''Twilight of the Idols, or How One Philosophizes with a Hammer (Götzen-Dämmerung, oder Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert'', August-September 1888), word-plays upon Wagner's opera, ''The Twilight of the Gods (Die Götterdämmerung)''. In this short work, written in the flurry of his last productive year, Nietzsche re-iterates and elaborates some of the criticisms of major philosophic figures (], ], ] and the Christian tradition). He establishes early on in the section ''The Problem of Socrates'' that nobody can estimate the value of ] and that any judgment concerning it only reveals the judging person's life-denying or life-affirming tendencies. He attempts to portray philosophers from Socrates onwards as (in his own term) "decadents" who employ ]s as a tool for self-preservation while the authority of tradition breaks down. He also criticizes the German culture of his day as unsophisticated, and shoots some disapproving arrows at key French, British, and Italian cultural figures. In contrast to all these alleged representatives of cultural decadence, Nietzsche applauds ], ], ], ], ] and the ] as healthier and stronger types. The book states the ] as Nietzsche's final and most important project, and gives a view of antiquity wherein the Romans for once take precedence over the ancient Greeks.


One such reaction to the loss of meaning is what Nietzsche called ''passive nihilism'', which he recognised in the ] philosophy of ]. Schopenhauer's doctrine—which Nietzsche also referred to as ]—advocates separating oneself from will and desires to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterised this ] attitude as a "will to nothingness". Life turns away from itself as there is nothing of value to be found in the world. This moving away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although, in this, the nihilist appears to be inconsistent; this "will to nothingness" is still a (disavowed) form of willing.<ref>F. Nietzsche, '']'', III:7.</ref>
=== ''The Anti-christ'' ===
{{main|The Anti-christ (book)}}


{{blockquote|A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought ''not'' to be and that the world as it ought to do not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, ], willing, feeling) has no meaning: this 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos—an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.|Friedrich Nietzsche, KSA 12:9 |taken from ''The Will to Power'', section 585, translated by ]}}
In one of his best-known and most contentious works, ''The Anti-christ, Curse on Christianity (Der Antichrist. Fluch auf das Christentum'', September 1888), Nietzsche launches into a ], hyperbolic attack on the morals of ] — the view of Nietzsche as an enthusiastic attacker of Christianity largely arises from this book. Therein he elaborates on his criticisms of Christianity expressed in his earlier works, but now using a ] tone, expressing a disgust over the way the slave-morality corrupted noble values in ancient Rome. He frames certain elements of the religion — the ], ], the martyrs, priests and the crusades — as creations of ] for the upholding of the unhealthy at the cost of stronger sentiments. Even in this extreme denunciation Nietzsche does not begrudge some respect to the figure of Jesus and to some Christian elements, but this book abandons the relatively even-handed (if inflammatory) analysis of his earlier criticisms for outright ] — Nietzsche proposes an "Anti-Christian" morality for the future: the ].


Nietzsche approached the problem of nihilism as a deeply personal one, stating that this problem of the modern world had "become conscious" in him.<ref>Nietzsche, ''KSA'' 12:7 </ref> Furthermore, he emphasised the danger of nihilism and the possibilities it offers, as seen in his statement that "I praise, I do not reproach, 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 a master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!"<ref>Friedrich Nietzsche, Complete Works Vol. 13.</ref> According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is ''overcome'' that a culture can have a true foundation on which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure. Heidegger interpreted the death of God with what he explained as the death of ]. He concluded that metaphysics has reached its potential and that the ultimate fate and downfall of metaphysics was proclaimed with the statement "God is dead."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hankey |first=Wayne J. |author-link=Wayne Hankey |year=2004 |title=Why Heidegger's 'History' of Metaphysics is Dead |url=https://www.academia.edu/11651293 |journal=American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly |volume=78 |issue=3 |pages=425–443 |doi=10.5840/acpq200478325 |issn=1051-3558}}</ref>
=== ''Ecce Homo'' ===
{{main|Ecce Homo (book)}}


Scholars such as ] and ] have aligned Nietzsche's religious thought with ] thinkers, particularly those of the ] tradition.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nishitani |first=Keiji |author-link=Keiji Nishitani |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/43475134 |title=The self-overcoming of nihilism |date=1990 |publisher=] |isbn=0-585-05739-7 |location=Albany |oclc=43475134}}</ref> Occasionally, Nietzsche has also been considered in relation to Catholic mystics such as ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stambaugh |first=Joan |author-link=Joan Stambaugh |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/27684700 |title=The other Nietzsche |date=1994 |publisher=] |isbn=0-7914-1699-2 |location=Albany |oclc=27684700}}</ref> Milne has argued against such interpretations on the grounds that such thinkers from Western and Eastern religious traditions strongly emphasise the divestment of will and the loss of ego, while Nietzsche offers a robust defence of egoism.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Milne |first=Andrew |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1264715169 |title=Nietzsche as egoist and mystic |date=2021 |isbn=978-3-030-75007-7 |location=Cham |oclc=1264715169}}</ref> Milne argues that Nietzsche's religious thought is better understood in relation to his self-professed ancestors: "], ], ], ]".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |title=Nachlass Fragments, 1884 |url=http://www.nietzschesource.org/#eKGWB/NF-1884,25[454}}</ref> Milne plays particularly close attention to Nietzsche's relationship to Goethe, who has typically been neglected in research by academic philosophers. Milne shows that Goethe's views on the one and the many allow a reciprocal determinism between part and whole, meaning that a claimed identity between part and whole does not give the part value solely in terms of belonging to the whole. In essence, this allows for a unitive sense of the individual's relationship to the universe, while also fostering a sense of "self-esteem" which Nietzsche found lacking in mystics such as Eckhart.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |title=Nachlass Fragments, 1884 |url=http://www.nietzschesource.org/eKGWB/NF-1884,26%5B442}}{{Dead link|date=October 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref>
Though ''Ecce Homo, How One Becomes What One Is (Ecce Homo, Wie man wird, was man ist'', October to November 1888) appears as a curiously-styled autobiography (with sections entitled "Why I Am So Clever", "Why I Am So Wise", "Why I Write Such Good Books") it offers much more of a history of Nietzsche's ideas than of the man himself, highlighting Nietzsche's project of genealogical analysis as well as de-emphasizing the splits between philosophy and literature, personality and philosophy, and body and mind. The author does this by tying certain qualities of his thought with idiosyncrasies of his physical person, as well as extremely candid remarks occasionally made throughout his half-joking self-adulation (a mockery of Socratic humility). After this self-description, wherein Nietzsche proclaims the goodness of everything that has happened to him (including his father's early death and his near-blindness — an example of '']'') — he offers brief insights into all of his works, concluding with the section "Why I Am A Destiny", calmly laying out the principles he places at the center of his project: ] and the ].


With regard to Nietzsche's development of thought, it has been noted in research that although he dealt with "nihilistic" themes ("pessimism, with nirvana and with nothingness and non-being"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Elisabeth Kuhn |title=Nietzsches Philosophie des europäischen Nihilismus |year=1992 |location=Berlin & New York |pages=10–11, 14–15}}</ref>) from 1869 onwards, a conceptual use of nihilism first took place in handwritten notes in mid-1880. This period saw the publication of a then popular work that reconstructed so-called "Russian nihilism" on the basis of Russian newspaper reports (N. Karlowitsch: The Development of Nihilism. Berlin 1880), which is significant for Nietzsche's terminology .<ref>{{Cite book |last=Martin Walter, Jörg Hüttner |title=Nachweis aus Nicolai Karlowitsch, Die Entwickelung des Nihilismus (1880) und aus Das Ausland (1880). In: Nietzsche-Studien, Vol. 51, 2022, p. 330–333.}}</ref>
=== ''Nietzsche contra Wagner'' ===
{{main|Nietzsche contra Wagner}}


=== Will to power ===
A selection of passages concerning ] and art in general which Nietzsche extracted from his works from the period 1878 to 1887 appears in ''Nietzsche Contra Wagner, Out of the Files of a Psychologist (Nietzsche contra Wagner, Aktenstücke eines Psychologen'', December 1888). The passages serve as a background for the comparison Nietzsche would make between his own aesthetics and those of Wagner and his description of how Wagner became corrupted through ], ], and ].
{{Main|Will to power}}


A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical outlook is the "will to power" ({{lang|de|der Wille zur Macht}}), which he maintained provides a basis for understanding human behaviour—more so than competing explanations, such as the ones based on pressure for adaptation or survival.{{sfn|Nietzsche|1886|p=13}}<!-- undefined here {{sfn|Nietzsche|1882|p=349}}-->{{sfn|Nietzsche|1887|p=II:12}} As such, according to Nietzsche, the drive for conservation appears as the major motivator of human or animal behaviour only in exceptions, as the general condition of life is not one of a 'struggle for existence.'{{sfn|Nietzsche|1888b|loc=Skirmishes of an untimely man, §&nbsp;14}} More often than not, self-conservation is a consequence of a creature's will to exert its strength on the outside world.
=== The Unpublished Notebooks ===


In presenting his theory of human behaviour, Nietzsche also addressed and attacked concepts from philosophies then popularly embraced, such as Schopenhauer's notion of an aimless will or that of ]. Utilitarians claim that what moves people is the desire to be happy and accumulate pleasure in their lives. But such a conception of happiness Nietzsche rejected as something limited to, and characteristic of, the bourgeois lifestyle of the English society,<ref>], ''Routledge guide to Nietzsche on morality'', p. 121</ref> and instead put forth the idea that happiness is not an aim ''per se''. It is a consequence of overcoming hurdles to one's actions and the fulfilment of the will.{{sfn|Nietzsche|1888c|loc=§&nbsp;2}}
{{main|The Will to Power}}


Related to his theory of the will to power is his speculation, which he did not deem final,{{sfn|Nietzsche|1886|loc=I, §&nbsp;36}} regarding the reality of the physical world, including inorganic matter—that, like man's affections and impulses, the material world is also set by the dynamics of a form of the will to power. At the core of his theory is a rejection of ]—the idea that matter is composed of stable, indivisible units (atoms). Instead, he seemed to have accepted the conclusions of ], who explained the qualities of matter as a result of an interplay of forces.{{efn-lr|Nietzsche comments in many notes about the matter being a hypothesis drawn from the metaphysics of substance. {{Cite journal |last=Whitlock |first=G. |date=1996 |title=Roger Boscovich, Benedict de Spinoza and Friedrich Nietzsche: The Untold Story |journal=] |volume=25 |page=207 |doi=10.1515/9783110244441.200 |doi-broken-date=3 December 2024 |s2cid=171148597}}}}{{sfn|Nietzsche|1886|loc=I, §&nbsp;12}} One study of Nietzsche defines his fully developed concept of the will to power as "the element from which derive both the quantitative difference of related forces and the quality that devolves into each force in this relation" revealing the will to power as "the principle of the synthesis of forces".{{sfn|Deleuze|2006|p=46}} Of such forces Nietzsche said they could perhaps be viewed as a primitive form of the will. Likewise, he rejected the view that the movement of bodies is ruled by inexorable laws of nature, positing instead that movement was governed by the power relations between bodies and forces.{{sfn|Nietzsche|1886|loc=I, §&nbsp;22}}
Nietzsche's '']'' contains an immense amount of material and discusses at great length the issues around which Nietzsche's philosophy revolves.<ref>
] and ] compiled a complete collection of these notebooks, totalling 5000 pages (compared with the 3500 pages of the ''Großoktavausgabe'' edition of Nietzsche's complete works which includes '']'')</ref>
Nietzsche's sister, ], who acted as executrix of his ], arranged these pieces for publication as '']''.


Other scholars disagree that Nietzsche considered the material world to be a form of the will to power: Nietzsche thoroughly criticised metaphysics, and by including the will to power in the material world, he would simply be setting up a new metaphysics. Other than Aphorism 36 in ''Beyond Good and Evil'', where he raised a question regarding will to power as being in the material world, they argue, it was only in his notes (unpublished by himself), where he wrote about a metaphysical will to power. And they also claim that Nietzsche directed his landlord to burn those notes in 1888 when he left Sils Maria.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Leddy |first=Thomas |date=14 June 2006 |title=Nietzsche's Mirror: The World as Will to Power (review) |journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=66–68 |doi=10.1353/nie.2006.0006 |s2cid=170737246}}</ref> According to these scholars, the "burning" story supports their thesis that Nietzsche rejected his project on the will to power at the end of his lucid life. However, a recent study (Huang 2019) shows that although it is true that in 1888 Nietzsche wanted some of his notes burned, this indicates little about his project on the will to power, not only because only 11 "aphorisms" saved from the flames were ultimately incorporated into ''The Will to Power'' (this book contains 1067 "aphorisms"), but also because these abandoned notes mainly focus on topics such as the critique of morality while touching upon the "feeling of power" only once.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Huang |first=Jing |date=19 March 2019 |title=Did Nietzsche want his notes burned? Some reflections on the ''Nachlass'' problem |journal=British Journal for the History of Philosophy |volume=27 |issue=6 |pages=1194–1214 |doi=10.1080/09608788.2019.1570078 |s2cid=171864314}}</ref>
Later investigation would reveal that Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche had included material extremely selectively and that she gave these excerpts an order different to that of the author, leading to the current opinion of her manuscript as a ] corruption bringing her brother's text in line with her own beliefs, which he vehemently opposed. On the strength of this manuscript, Elisabeth later fostered sympathy for her brother's works among the ]s, and her revisionism forms the cornerstone of the defence of Nietzsche against the charges of ] and ].


=== Eternal return ===
In the 1960s ] and ] published the first, integral notebooks, with the fragments arranged in a chronological order (whereas Elisabeth Förster-Nieztsche and Peter Gast had arranged them thematically, added titles, cut parts, included copied fragments of other authors (such as ]) without quotation marks, as if Nietzsche himself had written them, etc.).<ref>
{{Main|Eternal return}}
] (postface of ]), ''The 'Will to Power' does not exist'', )
</ref>
This reference edition has subsequently appeared in translation in various languages.<ref>
Already translated into French and German; the first volume of twenty has appeared in English. See http://www.washington.edu/research/showcase/1995c.html
</ref>
Following ]'s opinion — expressed in his courses on Nietzsche — some consider{{Fact|date=May 2007}} this unpublished work of Nietzsche fundamental to the understanding of Nietzsche's thought.


"Eternal return" (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a hypothetical concept that posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, for an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. It is a purely ] concept, involving no supernatural ], but the return of beings in the same bodies. Nietzsche first proposed the idea of eternal return in a parable in Section 341 of '']'', and also in the chapter "Of the Vision and the Riddle" in '']'', among other places.{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1961 |pp=176–180}} Nietzsche considered it as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and said that its burden is the "heaviest weight" imaginable ("'' das schwerste Gewicht''").<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kundera |first=Milan |title=The Unbearable Lightness of Being |year=1999 |page=5}}</ref> The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life, a reaction to ]'s praise of denying the will-to-live. To comprehend eternal recurrence, and to not only come to peace with it but to embrace it, requires '']'', "love of fate".<ref name="dudl">{{Cite book |last=Dudley |first=Will |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4dLeWFK6qp0C&pg=PA201 |title=Hegel, Nietzsche, and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-521-81250-4 |page=201 |via=]}}</ref> As ] pointed out in his lectures on Nietzsche, Nietzsche's first mention of eternal recurrence presents this concept as a ] rather than stating it as fact. According to Heidegger, it is the burden imposed by the ''question'' of eternal recurrence – the mere possibility of it, and the reality of speculating on that possibility – which is so significant in modern thought: "The way Nietzsche here patterns the first communication of the thought of the 'greatest burden' makes it clear that this 'thought of thoughts' is at the same time 'the most burdensome thought.'"<ref>See Heidegger, ''Nietzsche. Volume II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same'' trans. ]. New York: ], 1984. 25.</ref>
== Nietzsche's reading ==
{{main|Library of Friedrich Nietzsche}}
], Germany, which holds many of Nietzsche's papers.]]


] writes in ''Nietzsche: Life as Literature'' of three ways of seeing the eternal recurrence:
As a ], Nietzsche had a thorough knowledge of ]. He read ], ] and ],<ref>Brobjer, Thomas. ''Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library, 1885-1889.'' Published in ''Journal of History of Ideas.'' Accessed via JSTOR on 18 May 2007.</ref> who became his main opponents in his philosophy, and later ], whom he saw as his "precursor" on some counts<ref>Letter to ], ] 1881</ref> but as a personification of the "ascetic ideal" on others. Nietzsche expressed admiration for ] such as ], ] and ],<ref>Brendan Donnellan, in '']'', Vol. 52, No. 3 (May, 1979), pp. 303-318 {{en icon}}</ref> as well as for ] and ].<ref name=EHC3> See for example '']'', "Why I am So Clever", §3 </ref>


# "My life will recur in exactly identical fashion:" this expresses a totally ] approach to the idea;
Nietzsche was influenced by the ] of ],<ref>
# "My life may recur in exactly identical fashion:" This second view conditionally asserts ], but fails to capture what Nietzsche refers to in ''The Gay Science'', p.&nbsp;341; and finally,
Johan Grzelczyk, , ''HyperNietzsche'', 2005-11-01 {{fr icon}}. Grzelczyk quotes Jacques Le Rider, ''Nietzsche en France. De la fin du XIXe siècle au temps présent'', Paris, ], 1999, pp.8-9
# "If my life were to recur, then it could recur only in identical fashion." Nehamas shows that this interpretation exists totally independently of physics and does not presuppose the truth of cosmology.
</ref> ] and ]<ref>Johan Grzelczyk, , ''HyperNietzsche'', 2005-11-01 {{fr icon}}. Grzelczyk quotes B. Wahrig-Schmidt, "Irgendwie, jedenfalls physiologisch. Friedrich Nietzsche, Alexandre Herzen (fils) und Charles Féré 1888" in ''Nietzsche Studien'', Band 17, Berlin: ], 1988, p.439</ref> and early learned of ] through ].<ref name=Fouillee>
, ], ''Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger''. An. 34. Paris 1909. T. 67, S. 519-525 (on French Wikisource)
</ref>
Nietzsche notably also read some of the posthumous works of ],<ref>Mazzino Montinari, ''"La Volonté de puissance" n'existe pas'', Éditions de l'Éclat, 1996, §13</ref> ]'s ''My Religion'', ]'s ''Life of Jesus'' and ]'s ''The Possessed''.<ref>Mazzino Montinari, ''"La Volonté de puissance" n'existe pas'', Éditions de l'Éclat, 1996, §13</ref><ref>Walter Kaufmann, ''Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist'', pp. 306-340.</ref>


Nehamas concluded that, if individuals constitute themselves through their actions, they can only maintain themselves in their current state by living in a recurrence of past actions.{{sfn|Nehamas|1985|p=153}} Nietzsche's thought is the negation of the idea of a history of salvation.<ref name="Tongeren2000">{{Cite book |last=Van Tongeren |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TqxrlA9Qxg0C&pg=PA295 |title=Reinterpreting Modern Culture: An Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophy |publisher=Purdue University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-55753-157-5 |page=295 |access-date=18 April 2013}}</ref>
== Nietzsche's influence and reception ==
{{main|Influence and reception of Friedrich Nietzsche}}
Nietzsche's reception has proved a rather confused and complex affair. Many Germans eventually discovered his appeals for greater individualism and personality development in ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'', but responded to those appeals in diverging ways. He had some following among left-wing Germans in the 1890s; in 1894–95, German conservatives wanted to ban his work as subversive. By the ], however, he had acquired a reputation as a source of right-wing German ]. The ] provides another example of his reception: the French anti-semitic Right labelled the Jewish and Leftist intellectuals who defended ] as "Nietzscheans".{{Fact|date=April 2007}}


== Notes == === Übermensch ===
{{reflist|2}} {{Main|Übermensch}}


Another concept important to understanding Nietzsche is the ''Übermensch'' (Superman).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |title=The Portable Nietzsche |publisher=Penguin |year=1954 |location=New York |translator-last=Walter Kaufmann}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |title=Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-521-60261-7 |editor-last=Adrian Del Caro |location=Cambridge |editor-last2=Robert Pippin}}</ref>{{Sfn |Lampert |1986}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rosen |first=Stanley |author-link=Stanley Rosen |title=The Mask of Enlightenment |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995 |location=Cambridge}}</ref> Writing about nihilism in '']'', Nietzsche introduced an ''Übermensch''. According to ], "the death of God must be followed by a long twilight of piety and nihilism (II. 19; III. 8). Zarathustra's gift of the overman is given to mankind not aware of the problem to which the overman is the solution."{{Sfn |Lampert |1986 |p=18}} Zarathustra presents the ''Übermensch'' as the creator of new values, and he appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and nihilism. The ''Übermensch'' does not follow the morality of common people since that favours mediocrity but rises above the notion of ] and above the "]".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nietzsche, "Master and Slave Morality" |url=https://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/notes-nietzsche.html |website=philosophy.lander.edu}}</ref> In this way Zarathustra proclaims his ultimate goal as the journey towards the state of the ''Übermensch''. He wants a kind of spiritual evolution of self-awareness and overcoming of traditional views on morality and justice that stem from the ] beliefs still deeply rooted or related to the notion of God and Christianity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=van der Braak |first=Andre |date=31 March 2015 |title=Zen and Zarathustra: Self-Overcoming without a Self |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274738809 |journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies |volume=46 |pages=2–11 |doi=10.5325/jnietstud.46.1.0002 |hdl-access=free |hdl=1871.1/201e9876-d07c-4d6a-89f7-951ae8adf1e9}}</ref>
==References==


From ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' (Zarathustra's Prologue; pp.&nbsp;9–11):<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Clancy |title=Thus Spoke Zarathustra |last2=Higgins |first2=Kathleen M. |last3=Solomon |first3=Robert C. |last4=Stade |first4=George |date=2005 |publisher=Barnes & Noble Books |isbn=978-1-59308-384-7 |location=New York |pages=9–11}}</ref>
* Wicks, Robert, "Friedrich Nietzsche", in ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Fall 2004 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), .
* Magnus and Higgins, "Nietzsche's works and their themes", in ''The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche'', Magnus and Higgins (ed.), University of Cambridge Press, 1996, pp.21-58


{{blockquote|text=''I teach you the Übermensch''. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just the same shall man be to the Übermensch: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any ape. Even the wisest among you is only a conflict and hybrid of plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants? Behold, I teach you the Übermensch! The Übermensch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Übermensch ''shall be'' the meaning of the earth... Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Übermensch—a rope over an abyss... What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an ''over-going'' and a ''going under''.}}
== See also ==


Zarathustra contrasts the ''Übermensch'' with the ] of egalitarian modernity (the most obvious example being democracy), an alternative goal humanity might set for itself. The last man is possible only by mankind's having bred an ] creature who has no great passion or commitment, who is unable to dream, who merely earns his living and keeps warm. This concept appears only in ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'', and is presented as a condition that would render the creation of the ''Übermensch'' impossible.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.nietzschespirit.com/files/The_Most_Despicable_Man_is_Coming...the_Last_Man.html |title=Nietzsche and Heidegger |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120607060856/http://www.nietzschespirit.com/files/The_Most_Despicable_Man_is_Coming...the_Last_Man.html |archive-date=7 June 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=September 2024}}
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
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* ]


Some<ref>{{Cite book |last=Deleuze, Gilles |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8763853 |title=Nietzsche and philosophy |date=1983 |publisher=] |isbn=0-231-05668-0 |location=New York |oclc=8763853}}</ref> have suggested that the eternal return is related to the {{lang|de|Übermensch}}, since willing the eternal return of the same is a necessary step if the {{lang|de|Übermensch}} is to create new values untainted by the spirit of gravity or ]. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval, yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. It could seem that the {{lang|de|Übermensch}}, in being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Willing the eternal recurrence is presented as accepting the existence of the low while still recognising it as the low, and thus as overcoming the spirit of gravity or asceticism. One must have the strength of the {{lang|de|Übermensch}} to will the eternal recurrence. Only the {{lang|de|Übermensch}} will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made.
==External links==


The Nazis attempted to incorporate the concept into their ideology by means of taking Nietzsche's figurative form of speech and creating a literal superiority over other ethnicities. After his death, ] became the curator and editor of her brother's manuscripts. She reworked Nietzsche's unpublished writings to fit her own ] ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly ]. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with ] and ];<ref name="Golomb 2002">{{Cite book |title=Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?: On the Uses and Abuses of a Philosophy |date=2002 |publisher=] |editor-last=Golomb |editor-first=Jacob |editor-link=Jacob Golomb |location=Princeton, NJ |editor-last2=Wistrich |editor-first2=Robert S. |editor-link2=Robert S. Wistrich}}</ref> 20th-century scholars contested this interpretation of his work and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available.
{{wikisource author}}
{{wikiquote}}
{{Commons|Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche}}


Although Nietzsche has been misrepresented as a predecessor to Nazism, he criticised antisemitism, ] and, to a lesser extent, ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ansell-Pearson |first=Keith |title=An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihilist |date=1994 |publisher=] |pages=33–34}}</ref> Thus, he broke with his editor in 1886 because of his opposition to his editor's antisemitic stances, and his rupture with ], expressed in '']'' and '']'', both of which he wrote in 1888, had much to do with Wagner's endorsement of pan-Germanism and antisemitism—and also of his rallying to Christianity. In a 29 March 1887 letter to ], Nietzsche mocked antisemites, Fritsch, ], Wagner, Ebrard<!-- is it ]? -->, ], and the leading advocate of pan-Germanism, ], who would become, along with Wagner and ], the main official influences of ].<ref name="Bataille" /> This 1887 letter to Fritsch ended by: "And finally, how do you think I feel when the name Zarathustra is mouthed by anti-Semites?"{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} In contrast to these examples, Nietzsche's close friend ] recalled in his memoirs, "When he speaks frankly, the opinions he expresses about Jews go, in their severity, beyond any anti-Semitism. The foundation of his anti-Christianity is essentially anti-Semitic."<ref>Franz Overbeck (1906) "Erinnerungen an Friedrich Nietzsche". ''Die neue Rundschau''. 1:209–231, 320–330; quoted in Domenico Losurdo (2020) ''Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel''. Leiden: Brill, p. 572.</ref>
=== Full texts ===
* {{gutenberg author | id=Friedrich_Nietzsche | name=Friedrich Nietzsche}}


=== Critique of mass culture ===
* ; trans by ]
Friedrich Nietzsche held a pessimistic view of modern society and culture. He believed that the press and mass culture led to conformity and brought about mediocrity, and that the lack of intellectual progress was leading to the decline of the human species. In his opinion, some people would be able to become superior individuals through the use of willpower. By rising above mass culture, those persons would produce higher, brighter, and healthier human beings.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kellner |first=Douglas |year=1999 |title=Nietzsche's Critique of Mass Culture |url=http://www.pdcnet.org/PDC/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=intstudphil&id=intstudphil_1999_0031_0003_0077_0089&onlyautologin=true |journal=] |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=77–89 |doi=10.5840/intstudphil199931353}}</ref>
* {{Fr icon}}{{De icon}}
* {{De icon}}
* Free audiobook of excerpts from at
* Free audiobook of at
* Free audiobook of at
* : text with concordances and frequency-list
* http://www.nietzschelieder.de
*


=== Other sources === == Reading and influence ==
{{see also|Library of Friedrich Nietzsche}}
* ]:
* '']'':
* ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'':
* (Detailed Chronology and Biography)
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* , konvergencias by Adolfo Vásquez Rocca, Ph.D. {{Es icon}}
* by Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca in ''A Parte Rei: Revista de filosofía'', 49, January 2007] {{Es icon}}
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], Germany, which holds many of Nietzsche's papers]]
{{Philosophy navigation}}
A trained philologist, Nietzsche had a thorough knowledge of ]. He read ], ], ], ] and ],<ref>Brobjer, Thomas. "Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library, 1885–1889". ''Journal of History of Ideas.''</ref> who became the main opponents in his philosophy, and later engaged, via the work of ] in particular, with the thought of ], whom he saw as his "precursor" in many respects<ref>"Letter to Franz Overbeck, 30 July 1881"</ref><ref>Jason Maurice Yonover: "Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Philosophical Etiology (On the Example of Free Will)", in: ''European Journal of Philosophy'' (forthcoming).</ref> but as a personification of the "ascetic ideal" in others. However, Nietzsche referred to Kant as a "moral fanatic", Plato as "boring", Mill as a "blockhead", and of Spinoza, he asked: "How much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray?"{{Sfn|Russell|2004|pp=693–697}} He likewise expressed contempt for British author ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Joudrey |first=Thomas J. |year=2017 |title=The Defects of Perfectionism: Nietzsche, Eliot, and the Irrevocability of Wrong |journal=] |volume=96 |issue=1 |pages=77–104}}</ref>


Nietzsche's philosophy, while innovative and revolutionary, was indebted to many predecessors. While at Basel, Nietzsche lectured on pre-Platonic philosophers for several years, and the text of this lecture series has been characterised as a "lost link" in the development of his thought. "In it, concepts such as the will to power, the eternal return of the same, the overman, gay science, self-overcoming and so on receive rough, unnamed formulations and are linked to specific pre-Platonic, especially Heraclitus, who emerges as a pre-Platonic Nietzsche."{{Sfn|Nietzsche|2001|p=xxxvii}} The ] thinker ] was known for rejecting the concept of ] as a constant and eternal principle of the universe and embracing "flux" and incessant change. His symbolism of the world as "child play" marked by amoral spontaneity and lack of definite rules was appreciated by Nietzsche.{{Sfn|Roochnik|2004|pp=37–39}} Due to his Heraclitean sympathies, Nietzsche was also a vociferous critic of ], who, in contrast to Heraclitus, viewed the world as a single, unchanging Being.{{Sfn|Roochnik|2004|p=48}}
{{Nietzsche}}


In his ''Egotism in German Philosophy'', ] claimed that Nietzsche's whole philosophy was a reaction to Schopenhauer. Santayana wrote that Nietzsche's work was "an emendation of that of Schopenhauer. The will to live would become the will to dominate; pessimism founded on reflection would become optimism founded on courage; the suspense of the will in contemplation would yield to a more biological account of intelligence and taste; finally in the place of pity and asceticism (Schopenhauer's two principles of morals) Nietzsche would set up the duty of asserting the will at all costs and being cruelly but beautifully strong. These points of difference from Schopenhauer cover the whole philosophy of Nietzsche."{{Sfn|Santayana|1916|p=114}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wagner |first=Albert Malte |year=1939 |title=Goethe, Carlyle, Nietzsche and the German Middle Class (Concluded) |journal=Monatshefte für Deutschen Unterricht |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |volume=31 |issue=5 |pages=235–242 |jstor=30169571 }}</ref>
]


The superficial similarity of Nietzsche's ''Übermensch'' to ]'s Hero as well as both authors' rhetorical prose style has led to speculation concerning the degree to which Nietzsche might have been influenced by his reading of Carlyle.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wagner |first=Albert Malte |year=1939 |title=Goethe, Carlyle, Nietzsche and the German Middle Class |journal=Monatshefte für Deutschen Unterricht |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |volume=31 |issue=4 |pages=161–174 |jstor=30169550 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bentley |first=Eric |url=https://archive.org/details/centuryofherowor0000bent/mode/2up |title=A Century of Hero-Worship: A study of the idea of heroism in Carlyle and Nietzsche, with notes on Wagner, Spengler, Stefan George, and D. H. Lawrence |publisher=Beacon Press |year=1957 |edition=2nd, revised and reset |location=Boston |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=LaValley |first=Albert J. |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780300006766/mode/2up |title=Carlyle and the Idea of the Modern: Studies in Carlyle's Prophetic Literature and Its Relation to Blake, Nietzsche, Marx, and Others |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1968 |isbn=978-0300006766 |location=New Haven |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Meakins |first=William |year=2014 |title=Nietzsche, Carlyle, and Perfectionism |journal=] |publisher=Penn State University Press |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=258–278 |doi=10.5325/jnietstud.45.3.0258 |jstor=10.5325/jnietstud.45.3.0258 |s2cid=170182808 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jnietstud.45.3.0258 |url-access=registration}}</ref> ] believed that "Out of flows most of the philosophy of Nietzsche", qualifying his statement by adding that they were "profoundly different" in character.<ref>Chesterton, G. K. (1902). "Thomas Carlyle". ''''. London: Arthur L. Humphries.</ref> ] has shown that Carlyle anticipated Nietzsche in asserting the importance of metaphor (with Nietzsche's metaphor-fiction theory "appear to owe something to Carlyle"), announcing the death of God, and recognising both Goethe's ''Entsagen'' (renunciation) and ]'s ''Selbsttödtung'' (self-annihilation) as prerequisites for engaging in philosophy. apRoberts writes that "Nietzsche and Carlyle had the same German sources, but Nietzsche may owe more to Carlyle than he cares to admit", noting that " takes the trouble to repudiate Carlyle with malicious emphasis."<ref>{{Cite book |last=apRoberts |first=Ruth |url=https://archive.org/details/ancientdialectth00apro/mode/2up |title=The Ancient Dialect: Thomas Carlyle and Comparative Religion |publisher=University of California Press |year=1988 |isbn=978-0520061163 |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |page=68 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Ralph Jessop, ] at the ], has recently argued that a reassessment of Carlyle's influence on Nietzsche is "long-overdue".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jessop |first=Ralph |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SHCoMxt2hCAC |title=Thomas Carlyle Resartus: Reappraising Carlyle's Contribution to the Philosophy of History, Political Theory, and Cultural Criticism |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0838642238 |editor-last=Kerry |editor-first=Paul E. |location=Madison and Teaneck, NJ |page=67 |chapter=Shooting the Enlightenment: A Brave New Era for Carlyle? |editor-last2=Hill |editor-first2=Marylu |url-access=limited}}</ref>
{{Persondata

|NAME=Nietzsche, Friedrich
Nietzsche expressed admiration for 17th-century French moralists such as ], ] and ],<ref>Brendan Donnellan, in '']'', Vol. 52, No. 3 (May 1979), pp. 303–318</ref> as well as for ].{{Sfn|Nietzsche|1888d|loc="Why I am So Clever", §&nbsp;3}} The ] of ] influenced Nietzsche,<ref>Le Rider, Jacques. 1999. ''Nietzsche en France. De la fin du XIXe siècle au temps présent''. Paris: PUF. pp. 8–9, as cited in Grzelczyk, Johan. 2005. "" {{in lang|fr}}. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061116213847/http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4|date=16 November 2006}}. via ''HyperNietzsche.''</ref> as did that of ] and ].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wahrig-Schmidt |first=B. |date=1988 |title=Irgendwie, jedenfalls physiologisch. Friedrich Nietzsche, Alexandre Herzen (fils) und Charles Féré 1888. |language=de |trans-title=Somehow, at least physiologically. Friedrich Nietzsche, Alexandre Herzen (fils) and Charles Féré 1888. |journal=] |volume=17 |location=Berlin |publisher=] |page=439}}, as cited in {{Cite web |last=Grzelczyk |first=Johan |date=2005 |title=Féré et Nietzsche: au sujet de la décadence |trans-title=Féré and Nietzsche: about decadence |url=http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061116213847/http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4 |archive-date=16 November 2006 |language=fr |via=HyperNietzsche}}</ref> In 1867 Nietzsche wrote in a letter that he was trying to improve his German style of writing with the help of ], ] and Schopenhauer. It was probably Lichtenberg (along with ]) whose aphoristic style of writing contributed to Nietzsche's own use of ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thomas |first=Brobjer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V4DDxmM0T9EC&q=Nietzsche+neo-Kantians&pg=PA58 |title=Nietzsche's Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-252-09062-2 |via=]}}</ref> Nietzsche early learned of ] through ].<ref name="Fouillee">, ], ''Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger''. An. 34. Paris 1909. T. 67, S. 519–525 (on French Wikisource)</ref> The essays of ] had a profound influence on Nietzsche, who "loved Emerson from first to last",<ref>Walter Kaufmann, intr. p. 11 of his transl. of 'The Gay Science'</ref> wrote "Never have I felt so much at home in a book", and called him " author who has been richest in ideas in this century so far".<ref>Notebooks, cf. ''The Gay Science'', Walter Kaufmann transl, p. 12</ref> ] influenced Nietzsche's view on ] and ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Weaver |first=Santaniello |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BSQJgIKTJ7QC&q=Nietzsche+Hippolyte+Taine&pg=PA194 |title=Nietzsche, God, and the Jews: His Critique of Judeo-Christianity in Relation to the Nazi Myth |publisher=State University of New York Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-7914-2136-9 |via=]}}</ref> Notably, he also read some of the posthumous works of ],<ref name="Mazzino Montinari 1996">{{Cite book |last=Montinari |first=Mazzino |author-link=Mazzino Montinari |title=La Volonté de puissance' n'existe pas |date=1996 |publisher=Éditions de l'Éclat |page=13 |language=fr |trans-title=The Will to Power does not exist}}</ref> ]'s ''My Religion'', ]'s ''Life of Jesus'', and ]'s ''Demons''.<ref name="Mazzino Montinari 1996" />{{Sfn|Kaufmann|1974|pp=306–340}} Nietzsche called Dostoyevsky "the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn".{{Sfn|Nietzsche|1888b|loc=§&nbsp;45}} While Nietzsche never mentions ], the similarities in their ideas have prompted a minority of interpreters to suggest a ].{{sfn|Löwith|1964|p=187}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=S. |title=Left Wing Nietzscheans: The Politics of German Expressionism 1910–1920 |date=1990 |publisher=] |location=Berlin/New York |page=144}}</ref>{{sfn|Deleuze|2006|pp=153–154}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Solomon |first1=R. C. |title=The Age of German Idealism |last2=Higgins |first2=K. M. |date=1993 |publisher=] |page=300}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Samek |first=R. A. |title=The Meta Phenomenon |date=1981 |location=New York |page=70}}</ref><ref>Goyens, T. 2007. '']: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City''. Illinois. p. 197.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Laska |first=Bernd A. |title=Nietzsche's initial crisis |url=http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html |journal=Germanic Notes and Reviews |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=109–133}}</ref>
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm

|SHORT DESCRIPTION=German philosopher
In 1861, Nietzsche wrote an enthusiastic essay on his "favorite poet," ], mostly forgotten at that time.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Liukkonen |first=Petri |title=Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/holderli.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141226203214/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/holderli.htm |archive-date=26 December 2014 |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |publisher=] Public Library |location=Finland}}</ref> He also expressed deep appreciation for Stifter's '']'',<ref name="Meyer-Sickendiek, Burkhard 2004. p. 323">Meyer-Sickendiek, Burkhard. 2004. "Nietzsche's Aesthetic Solution to the Problem of Epigonism in the Nineteenth Century." In ''Nietzsche and Antiquity: His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition'', edited by P. Bishop. Woodbridge, UK: ]. p. 323.</ref> Byron's '']'' and Twain's '']''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rebekah |first=Peery |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Eh4YJfNeO7QC&q=Nietzsche+Adventures+of+Tom+Sawyer&pg=PA19 |title=Nietzsche, Philosopher of the Perilous Perhaps |publisher=Algora |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-87586-644-4 |via=]}}</ref>
|DATE OF BIRTH=] ]

|PLACE OF BIRTH=], near ], ]
A ] translation of the Calcutta version of the ancient Hindu text called the ] was reviewed by Friedrich Nietzsche. He commented on it both favourably and unfavorably:
|DATE OF DEATH=] ]
* He deemed it "an incomparably spiritual and superior work" to the Christian Bible, observed that "the sun shines on the whole book" and attributed its ethical perspective to "the noble classes, the philosophers and warriors, stand above the mass".<ref>Friedrich Nietzsche, ''The Antichrist'' (1888), 56–57.</ref> Nietzsche does not advocate a caste system, states ], but endorses the political exclusion conveyed in the Manu text.<ref>Daniel Conway (1997), ''Nietzsche and the Political'', Routledge, {{ISBN|978-0415100694}}, p. 36</ref> Nietzsche considered Manu's social order as far from perfect, but considers the general idea of a caste system to be natural and right, and stated that "caste-order, order of rank is just a formula for the supreme law of life itself", a "natural order, lawfulness par excellence".{{sfn|Young|2010|p=515}}<ref name="ReferenceB">Aaron Ridley, ''Nietzsche: The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols: And Other Writings'', Cambridge University Press, p. 58</ref> According to Nietzsche, states Julian Young, "Nature, not Manu, separates from each other: predominantly spiritual people, people characterized by muscular and temperamental strength, and a third group of people who are not distinguished in either way, the average".{{sfn|Young|2010|p=515}} He wrote that "To prepare a book of law in the style of Manu means to give a people the right to become master one day, to become perfect, – to aspire to the highest art of life."<ref name="ReferenceB" />
|PLACE OF DEATH=]
* The Law of Manu was also criticised by Nietzsche. Nietzsche writes, "these regulations teach us enough, in them we find for once Aryan humanity, quite pure, quite primordial, we learn that the concept of pure blood is the opposite of a harmless concept."<ref>Walter Kaufmann (1980), ''From Shakespeare to Existentialism'', Princeton University Press, {{ISBN|978-0691013671}}, p. 215</ref>

== Reception and legacy ==
{{Main|Influence and reception of Friedrich Nietzsche}}
], 1906, at the ], Stockholm]]
]
Nietzsche's works did not reach a wide readership during his active writing career. However, in 1888 the influential Danish critic ] aroused considerable excitement about Nietzsche through a series of lectures he gave at the ]. In the years after Nietzsche's death in 1900, his works became better known, and readers have responded to them in complex and sometimes controversial ways.<ref name="EB1911">{{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm |volume=19 |last=Schiller |first=Ferdinand Canning Scott |author-link=Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller |page=672}}</ref> Many Germans eventually discovered his appeals for greater ] and personality development in '']'', but responded to them divergently. He had some following among left-wing Germans in the 1890s; in 1894–1895 German conservatives wanted to ban his work as ]. During the late 19th century Nietzsche's ideas were commonly associated with anarchist movements and appear to have had influence within them, particularly in France, Germany,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Miething |first=Dominique F. |url=http://www.nomos-elibrary.de/index.php?doi=10.5771/9783845280127 |title=Anarchistische Deutungen der Philosophie Friedrich Nietzsches: Deutschland, Großbritannien, USA (1890–1947) |date=2016 |publisher=Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG |isbn=978-3-8452-8012-7 |doi=10.5771/9783845280127}}</ref> Great Britain and the United States.<ref>Ewald, O. 1908. "German Philosophy in 1907." '']'' 17(4):400–426.</ref><ref>Riley, T. A. 1947. "Anti-Statism in German Literature, as Exemplified by the Work of John Henry Mackay." '']'' 62(3):828–843.</ref><ref>Forth, C. E. 1993. "Nietzsche, Decadence, and Regeneration in France, 1891–1895." '']'' 54(1):97–117.</ref> ] is credited with the most in-depth appreciation and critique of Nietzsche's ideas from an anarchist perspective.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Miething |first=Dominique |date=2016-04-02 |title=Overcoming the preachers of death: Gustav Landauer's reading of Friedrich Nietzsche |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17496977.2016.1140404 |journal=Intellectual History Review |language=en |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=285–304 |doi=10.1080/17496977.2016.1140404 |issn=1749-6977 |s2cid=170389740}}</ref> ] produced the first book on Nietzsche in English in 1907, '']'', and in 1910 a book of translated paragraphs from Nietzsche, increasing knowledge of his philosophy in the United States.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mencken |first=H. L. |url=https://archive.org/details/gistnietzsche00mencgoog |title=The Gist of Nietzsche |publisher=J.W. Luce |year=1910 |location=Boston}}</ref> Nietzsche is known today as a precursor to ], ] and ].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Postmodernism |encyclopedia=] |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/#1 |last=Aylesworth |first=Gary |date=2015 |orig-date=2005}}. §Precursors.</ref>

] and ] described Nietzsche as the intellectual heir to ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Coste |first=Bénédicte |date=15 December 2016 |title=The Romantics of 1909: Arthur Symons, Pierre Lasserre and T.E. Hulme |journal=E-rea |volume=14 |issue=1 |doi=10.4000/erea.5609 |issn=1638-1718 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Symons went on to compare the ideas of the two thinkers in '']'', while Yeats tried to raise awareness of Nietzsche in Ireland.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Everdell |first=William |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780226224817/page/508 |title=The First Moderns |publisher=] |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-226-22481-7 |location=Chicago |page=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.fathom.com/feature/61007/ |title=Joyce and Nietzsche |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612202020/http://www.fathom.com/feature/61007/ |archive-date=12 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Pasley |first=Malcolm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N9H1vjyOMswC&q=Arthur+Symons+Nietzsche&pg=PA231 |title=Nietzsche:Imagery and thoughts |publisher=University of California Press |year=1978 |isbn=978-0-520-03577-5 |via=]}}</ref> A similar notion was espoused by ] who wrote of Nietzsche in his ''New Year Letter'' (released in 1941 in '']''): "O masterly ] of our liberal fallacies ... all your life you stormed, like your English forerunner Blake."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Forrester |first=John |url=https://archive.org/details/dispatchesfromfr00forr |title=Dispatches from the Freud Wars |publisher=] |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-674-53960-0 |page= |quote=masterly debunker of our liberal fallacies. |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Argyle |first=Gisela |url=https://archive.org/details/germanyasmodelmo0000argy |title=Germany as model and monster: Allusions in English fiction |publisher=] – MQUP |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-7735-2351-7 |page= |quote=W.H. Auden Nietzsche. |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Auden |first=Wystan Hugh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WokrAAAAYAAJ |title=The Double Man |date=1 June 1979 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-313-21073-0 |via=]}}</ref> Nietzsche made an impact on composers during the 1890s. Writer ] noted that ] was "attracted to the poetic fire of Zarathustra, but repelled by the intellectual core of its writings". He also quoted Mahler himself, and adds that he was influenced by Nietzsche's conception and affirmative approach to nature, which Mahler presented in his ] using ]. ] produced a piece of choral music, '']'', based on a text of ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'', while ] (who also based his ] on the same book), was only interested in finishing "another chapter of symphonic autobiography".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Donald |first=Mitchell |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yKCq909vSpwC&q=Mahler+Nietzsche+influence&pg=PA99 |title=Gustav Mahler: The Early Years |publisher=University of California Press |year=1980 |isbn=978-0-520-04141-7 |via=]}}</ref> Writers and poets influenced by Nietzsche include ],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Holdheim |first=William W. |year=1957 |title=The Young Gide's Reaction to Nietzsche |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/young-gides-reaction-to-nietzsche/FFE35D5DC1DF62BF689A575434934BC1 |journal=PMLA |language=en |volume=72 |issue=3 |pages=534–544 |doi=10.2307/460474 |issn=0030-8129 |jstor=460474 |s2cid=163634107}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Citation |last=Dahlkvist |first=Tobias |title=By the Open Sea – A Decadent Novel? |work=The International Strindberg |pages=195–214 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv47w3xd.13 |access-date=28 May 2021 |publisher=] |doi=10.2307/j.ctv47w3xd.13 |isbn=978-0-8101-6629-5}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Carpenter |first=Frederic I. |year=1977 |title=Robinson Jeffers Today: Beyond Good and Beneath Evil |journal=American Literature |volume=49 |issue=1 |pages=86–96 |doi=10.2307/2925556 |issn=0002-9831 |jstor=2925556}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Murphy |first=Katharine |date=27 May 2020 |title=Spanish Modernism in Context: Failed Heroism and Cross-Cultural Encounters in Pío Baroja and Joseph Conrad |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/14753820.2020.1726630 |journal=Bulletin of Spanish Studies |volume=97 |issue=5 |pages=807–829 |doi=10.1080/14753820.2020.1726630 |issn=1475-3820 |s2cid=214389935 |hdl-access=free |hdl=10871/39620}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Colin |first=Milton |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/797149190 |title=Lawrence and Nietzsche : a study in influence |date=1987 |publisher=] |isbn=0-08-035067-4 |oclc=797149190}}</ref> ]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mier-Cruz |first=Benjamin |date=5 February 2021 |title=Edith Södergran's Genderqueer Modernism |journal=] |volume=10 |issue=1 |page=28 |doi=10.3390/h10010028 |issn=2076-0787 |doi-access=free}}</ref> and ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Wagenaar |first1=Dick |last2=Iwamoto |first2=Yoshio |year=1975 |title=Yukio Mishima: Dialectics of Mind and Body |journal=Contemporary Literature |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=41–60 |doi=10.2307/1207783 |issn=0010-7484 |jstor=1207783}}</ref>

Nietzsche was an early influence on the poetry of ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Paine |first=Jeffery M. |year=1986 |title=Rainer Maria Rilke: The Evolution of a Poet |journal=The Wilson Quarterly |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=148–162 |issn=0363-3276 |jstor=40257012}}</ref> ] counted Nietzsche, along with ] and Dostoyevsky, as his primary influences.<ref>{{Cite news |last=James |first=Wood |date=26 November 1998 |title=Addicted to Unpredictability |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n23/james-wood/addicted-to-unpredictability |work=London Review of Books |pages=16–19}}</ref> Author ] wrote that he was more stimulated by Nietzsche than by any other writer.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Reesman |first=Jeanne Campbell |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fbrV_fwgcq4C&q=Nietzsche+Jack+London&pg=PA44 |title=Jack London's Racial Lives |publisher=University of Georgia Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-8203-3970-2 |via=]}}</ref> Critics have suggested that the character of David Grief in '']'' was based on Nietzsche.<ref>{{Cite book |last=London |first=Jack |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7q2AHsyTuo4C&q=Nietzsche+Jack+London&pg=PR19 |title=A Sun of the Son |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8061-3362-1 |via=]}}</ref> Nietzsche's influence on ] is most evidenced in '']'' (''The Secrets of the Self'').<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ray |first=Jackson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ftpGJy0DPbYC&q=Iqbal+Nietzsche&pg=PA57 |title=Nietzsche and Islam |publisher=Routledge |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-134-20500-4 |via=]}}</ref> ]<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/stevens.php |title=Poets of Cambridge |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120429020746/http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/stevens.php |archive-date=29 April 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> was another reader of Nietzsche, and elements of Nietzsche's philosophy were found throughout Stevens's poetry collection '']''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wallace Stevens' Harmonium – Collaborative Essays and Articles – Geneseo Wiki |url=https://wiki.geneseo.edu/display/essaysarticles/Wallace+Stevens%27+Harmonium#WallaceStevens%27Harmonium-TheInfluenceofNietzsche |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121211011940/https://wiki.geneseo.edu/display/essaysarticles/Wallace+Stevens%27+Harmonium#WallaceStevens%27Harmonium-TheInfluenceofNietzsche |archive-date=11 December 2012 |access-date=17 May 2012 |website=wiki.geneseo.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Serio |first=John N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3m7_U1UdeRgC&q=Wallace+Stevens+Nietzsche&pg=PA112 |title=The Cambridge Companion to Wallace Stevens |publisher=] |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-139-82754-6 |via=]}}</ref> ] was influenced by the idea of the {{lang|de|Übermensch}} and it is a central theme in his books '']'' and '']''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/biography.html |title=Olaf Stapleton |access-date=22 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090717120543/http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/biography.html |archive-date=17 July 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In Russia, Nietzsche influenced ]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brad |first=Damare |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fo2QqyyFCR4C&q=Merezhovsky+Nietzsche&pg=PA12 |title=Music and Literature in Silver Age Russia: Mikhail Kuzmin and Alexander Scriabin |isbn=978-0-549-81910-3 |via=]}}{{Dead link|date=February 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> and figures such as ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bernice |first=Rosenthal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ppvr3LZ8o2wC&q=Merezhkovsky+Nietzsche&pg=PA35 |title=New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism |publisher=Penn State Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-271-04658-7 |via=]}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bernice |first=Rosenthal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f5cUEHHchNAC&q=Andrei+Bely+Nietzsche&pg=PA117 |title=Nietzsche and Soviet Culture: Ally and Adversary |date=1994 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-45281-6 |via=]}}</ref> ] and ] incorporated or discussed parts of Nietzsche philosophy in their works. ]'s novel '']''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shookman |first=Ellis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hJZm5QWgxC4C&q=Thomas+Mann+Nietzsche |title=Thomas Mann's Death in Venice |publisher=Greenwood Publishing |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-313-31159-8 |via=]}}</ref> shows a use of Apollonian and Dionysian, and in '']'' Nietzsche was a central source for the character of Adrian Leverkühn.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.nietzschecircle.com/essayArchive5.html |title=Nietzsche Circle |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130123020205/http://nietzschecircle.com/essayArchive5.html |archive-date=23 January 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Doctor Faustus |url=http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/12474 |website=medhum.med.nyu.edu}}</ref> ], similarly, in his '']'' presents two main characters as opposite yet intertwined Apollonian and Dionysian spirits. Painter ] was fascinated by ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'', and he drew an illustration for the first Italian translation of the book. The Russian painter ] created the oil painting cycle '']'' dedicated to the book ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra''.<ref>{{Cite web |script-title=ru:Book: Ницше Фридрих Вильгельм. Так говорил Заратустра (с репродукциями картин Л. Хейдиз из цикла "Так говорил Заратустра") |url=https://books.academic.ru/book.nsf/58297551/ |website=Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias |language=ru}}</ref>

By ], Nietzsche had acquired a reputation as an inspiration for right-wing German ] and leftist politics. German soldiers received copies of ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' as gifts during World War I.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Aschheim |first=Steven E. |title=The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890–1990 |year=1992 |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |page=135 |quote="bout 150,000 copies of a specially durable wartime ''Zarathustra'' were distributed to the troops"}}</ref>{{sfn|Kaufmann|1974|p=8}} The ] provided a contrasting example of his reception: the French antisemitic Right labelled the Jewish and leftist intellectuals who defended ] as "Nietzscheans".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schrift |first=A.D. |title=Nietzsche's French Legacy: A Genealogy of Poststructuralism |date=1995 |publisher=] |isbn=0-415-91147-8}}</ref> Nietzsche ] for many ] thinkers around the start of the 20th century, most notable being ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jacob |first=Golomb |url=http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100486340 |title=Nietzsche and Zion |date=2004 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-8014-3762-5}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jacob |first=Golomb |url=http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=188 |title=Nietzsche and Zion}}</ref> ], ]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ohana |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TOMrUcFiU0UC&q=A.+D.+Gordon+Nietzsche&pg=PA48 |title=The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites nor Crusaders |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-139-50520-8 |via=]}}</ref> and ], who went so far as to extoll Nietzsche as a "creator" and "emissary of life".{{sfn|Golomb|1997|pp=234–235}} ] was a great admirer of Nietzsche; the first president of Israel sent Nietzsche's books to his wife, adding a comment in a letter that "This was the best and finest thing I can send to you."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Walter |first=Kaufmann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9RHqWPIC0QQC&q=Andre+Malraux+Nietzsche&pg=PA419 |title=Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4008-2016-0 |via=]}}</ref> ], the ideological chief of the ] that fought the British in ] in the 1940s, wrote about Nietzsche in his underground newspaper and later translated most of Nietzsche's books into ].<ref>Zev Golan, ''God, Man and Nietzsche'', iUniverse, 2007, p. 169: "It would be most useful if our youth climbed, even if only briefly, to Zarathustra's heights{{nbsp}}..."</ref> ] remarked that ''Zarathustra'' influenced him more than any other book he ever read. He also shared Nietzsche's view of ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Törnqvist |first=Egil |author-link=Egil Törnqvist |chapter=O'Neill's philosophical and literary paragons |title=The Cambridge Companion to Eugene O'Neill |editor-last=Manheim |editor-first=Michael |location=Cambridge |publisher=] |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-521-55645-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00mich |page=19}}</ref> The plays '']'' and '']'' are examples of Nietzsche's influence on him.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Eugene O'Neill - eOneill.com: An Electronic Archive |url=http://eoneill.com/ |website=eoneill.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Diggins |first=John Patrick |author-link=John Patrick Diggins |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LnnSlZMp0oAC&q=Lazarus+Laughed+Nietzsche&pg=PA201 |title=Eugene O'Neill's America: Desire Under Democracy |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-226-14882-3 |via=]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Törnqvist |first=Egil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g1whggReJx4C&q=Nietzsche+Eugene+O%27Neill&pg=PA40 |title=Eugene O'Neill: A Playwright's theatre |publisher=McFarland |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-7864-1713-1 |via=]}}</ref> The ] claimed Nietzsche as ideologically one of their own.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Prideaux |first=Sue |title=I am dynamite |publisher=] |pages=Chapter 6-page 9 |language=En}}</ref> From 1888 through the 1890s there were more publications of Nietzsche works in Russia than in any other country.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Prideaux |first=Sue |title=I am dynamite |publisher=] |pages=Chapter 20 pages 6–8 |language=en}}</ref> Nietzsche was influential among the Bolsheviks. Among the Nietzschean Bolsheviks were ],{{sfn|Čeika|2021|pp=181–182}} ]{{sfn|Čeika|2021|p=181}} and ].{{sfn|Čeika|2021|pp=178–179}} Nietzsche's influence on the works of ] philosophers ] and ]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Adorno, Theodor &#124; Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://iep.utm.edu/adorno/}}</ref> can be seen in the '']''. Adorno summed up Nietzsche's philosophy as expressing the "humane in a world in which humanity has become a sham".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herman |first=Arthur |author-link=Arthur L. Herman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A2NxFq1C7uIC&q=I+have+come+to+the+conclusion+that+Nietzsche+is+probably+a+greater+thinker+than+Marx&pg=PT351 |title=The Idea of Decline in Western History |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4516-0313-2 |via=]}}{{Dead link|date=February 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Nietzsche's growing prominence suffered a severe setback when his works became closely associated with ] and ]. Many political leaders of the twentieth century were at least superficially familiar with Nietzsche's ideas, although it is not always possible to determine whether they actually read his work. It is debated among scholars whether Hitler read Nietzsche, although if he did, it may not have been extensively.{{efn-lr|]. 2008. "Introductory essay for 'Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944 Secret Conversations'." In '']''. Enigma Books. p. xxxvii:

"We know, from his secretary, that he could quote Schopenhauer by the page, and the other German philosopher of willpower, Nietzsche, whose works he afterward presented to ], was often on his lips."}}{{efn-lr|{{Cite book |last=Kershaw |first=Ian |author-link=Ian Kershaw |title=Hitler: Hubris 1889–1936 |publisher=] |page=240 |quote='Landsberg,' Hitler told ], was his 'university paid for by the state.' He read, he said, everything he could get hold of: Nietzsche, ], ], ], ], ]'s Thoughts and Memories, and the war memoirs of German and allied generals and statesmen.... But Hitler's reading and reflection collection were anything but academic, doubtless, he did read much. However, as was noted in an earlier chapter, he made clear in ] that reading for him had purely an instrumental purpose. He read not for knowledge or enlightenment, but for confirmation of his own preconceptions.}}}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Santaniello |first=Weaver |title=Nietzsche, God, and the Jews |date=1994 |publisher=] |page=41 |quote=Hitler probably never read a word of Nietzsche.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lang |first=Berel |author-link=Berel Lang |title=Post-Holocaust: Interpretation, Misinterpretation, and the Claims of History |date=2005 |publisher=] |page=162 |quote=Arguably, Hitler himself never read a word of Nietzsche; certainly, if he did read him, it was not extensively.}}</ref> He was a frequent visitor to the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and used expressions of Nietzsche's, such as "lords of the earth" in {{lang|de|]}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shirer |first=William L. |author-link=William L. Shirer |title=]: A History of Nazi Germany |date=1959 |publisher=Touchstone |pages=100–101}}</ref> The Nazis made selective use of Nietzsche's philosophy. ] was perhaps the most notable exponent of Nietzschean thought in Nazi Germany. Baeumler had published his book "Nietzsche, Philosopher and Politician" in 1931, before the Nazis' rise to power, and subsequently published several editions of Nietzsche's work during the Third Reich.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Baeumler |first=Alfred |author-link=Alfred Baeumler |title=Nietzsche, der Philosoph und Politiker |date=1931 |publisher=Reclam |location=Leipzig |language=de |trans-title=Nietzsche, the philosophy and politics}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Whyte |first=Max |date=2008 |title=The Uses and Abuses of Nietzsche in the Third Reich: Alfred Baeumler's 'Heroic Realism' |journal=] |volume=43 |pages=171–194 |doi=10.1177/0022009408089028 |s2cid=144479240 |number=2}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Falasca-Zamponi |first=Simonetta |title=Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy |date=2000 |publisher=] |page=44 |quote=In 1908 he presented his conception of the superman's role in modern society in a writing on Nietzsche titled "The Philosophy of Force"}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Morgan |first=Philip |title=Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945 |date=2003 |publisher=] |page=21 |quote=We know that Mussolini had read Nietzsche}}</ref> ]<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Gaddis |first1=J. L. |title=Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb |last2=Gordon |first2=P. H. |last3=May |first3=E. R. |last4=Rosenberg |first4=J. |date=1999 |publisher=] |page=217 |quote=The son of a history teacher, de Gaulle read voraciously as a boy and young man—], ], Friederich {{sic}} Nietzsche, ]—and was steeped in conservative French historical and philosophical traditions.}}</ref> and ]<ref>{{Cite book |first=Mumia |last=Abu-Jamal |author-link=Mumia Abu-Jamal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=caWPDd6PuaMC&q=Nietzsche |title=We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party |publisher=South End Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-89608-718-7 |via=]}}</ref> read Nietzsche. ] read Nietzsche with "curious interest", and his book ''Beyond Peace'' might have taken its title from Nietzsche's book ''Beyond Good and Evil'' which Nixon read beforehand.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Crowley |first=Monica |title=Nixon in Winter |publisher=] |year=1998 |page=351 |quote=He read with curious interest the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche Nixon asked to borrow my copy of ''Beyond Good and Evil'', a title that inspired the title of his final book, ''Beyond Peace''.}}</ref> ] wrote that Nietzsche had exerted great influence on philosophers and on people of literary and artistic culture, but warned that the attempt to put Nietzsche's philosophy of aristocracy into practice could only be done by an organisation similar to the Fascist or the Nazi party.<ref name="Russell 1945 766 & 770">{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofwestern00russ/ |title=A History of Western Philosophy |publisher=] |year=1945 |isbn=978-0-671-20158-6 |location=New York |pages=}}</ref>

A decade after World War II, there was a revival of Nietzsche's philosophical writings thanks to translations and analyses by ] and ]. ] was also influential in this revival, defending Nietzsche against appropriation by the Nazis with his notable 1937 essay "Nietzsche and Fascists".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bataille |first=Georges |author-link=Georges Bataille |date=January 1937 |title=Nietzsche and Fascists |url=http://i.a.m.free.fr/acephale/nietzsheetlesfascistes.html |journal=Acéphale}}</ref> Others, well known philosophers in their own right, wrote commentaries on Nietzsche's philosophy, including ], who produced a four-volume study, and ], who wrote a book called ''Dostoyevski, Tolstoy and Nietzsche'' where he portrays Nietzsche and Dostoyevski as the "thinkers of tragedy".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lev |first=Shestov |author-link=Lev Shestov |url=https://archive.org/details/dostoevskytolsto0000shes |title=Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche |publisher=Ohio University Press |year=1969 |isbn=978-0-8214-0053-1 |url-access=registration}}</ref> ] compares Nietzsche's importance to ethics to that of ] for ].<ref>{{Citation |last=Sorgner |first=Stefan |title=Nietzsche & Germany |journal=] |volume=29 |year=2000 |url=http://www.philosophynow.org/issues/29/Nietzsche_and_Germany}}</ref> Sociologist ] read Nietzsche avidly from his early life, and later frequently discussed many of his concepts in his own works. Nietzsche has influenced philosophers such as ], ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rickman |first=Hans Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D6fM0jqDVFgC&q=Nietzsche+Sartre+influence&pg=PA142 |title=Philosophy in Literature |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-8386-3652-7 |via=]}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://modernism.research.yale.edu/index.php/Oswald_Spengler |title=Oswald Spengler |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520200025/http://modernism.research.yale.edu/index.php/Oswald_Spengler |archive-date=20 May 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite web |title=George Grant |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/george-grant |access-date=31 August 2019 |website=]}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Tat |first1=Alin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sJp6tGCgO-8C&q=Emil+Cioran+Nietzsche&pg=PA17 |title=Romanian Philosophical Culture, Globalization, and Education |last2=Popenici |first2=Stefan |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-56518-242-4}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2019 |title=Albert Camus (1913–1960) |encyclopedia=] |url=https://www.iep.utm.edu/camus/ |last=Simpson |first=David |issn=2161-0002}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Murray |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Murray (political scientist) |date=Spring 2010 |title=Who Is Ayn Rand? |url=https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/who-is-ayn-rand/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210513121901/https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/who-is-ayn-rand/ |archive-date=May 13, 2021 |access-date=May 16, 2021 |magazine=] |volume=10 |issue=2}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Derrida |first1=J. |author-link=Jacques Derrida |title=Acts of Literature |last2=Attridge |first2=D. |date=25 September 2017 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-203-87354-0 |pages=33–75 |chapter="This Strange Institution Called Literature": An Interview with Jacques Derrida |doi=10.4324/9780203873540-2 |access-date=28 May 2021 |orig-date=1992 |chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203873540-2}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kofman |first=Sarah |author-link=Sarah Kofman |title=Nietzsche and metaphor |publisher=] |year=1993}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lampert |first=Laurence |title=Leo Strauss and Nietzsche |publisher=] |year=1996 |location=Chicago}}</ref> ], ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Foucault |first=Michel |author-link=Michel Foucault |url=https://philarchive.org/rec/FOUNGH |title=Language, Counter-Memory, Practice |date=1980 |publisher=] |isbn=978-1-5017-4191-3 |pages=139–164 |language=en |chapter=Nietzsche, Genealogy, History |doi=10.1515/9781501741913-008 |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781501741913-008/html |s2cid=158684860}}</ref> ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Bernard |title=Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality |date=31 December 1994 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-520-91404-9 |pages=237–248 |language=en |chapter=13. Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology |doi=10.1525/9780520914049-017 |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520914049-017/html}}</ref> and ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Land |first=Nick |author-link=Nick Land |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1176303181 |title=Fanged noumena collected writings 1987–2007 |date=2019 |publisher=Urbanomic/Sequence Press |others=Ray Brassier, Robin Mackay |isbn=978-0-9832169-4-0 |location= |oclc=1176303181}}</ref>

Camus described Nietzsche as "the only artist to have derived the extreme consequences of an aesthetics of the ]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cornwell |first=Neil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bmq7AAAAIAAJ&q=Kafka+Nietzsche&pg=PA186 |title=The Absurd in Literature |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7190-7410-3 |via=]}}</ref> ] called Nietzsche one of the masters of the "school of suspicion", alongside ] and Sigmund Freud.<ref name="Ricœur">{{Cite book |last=Ricœur |first=Paul |url=https://archive.org/details/freudphilosophye00rico_826 |title=Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation |publisher=] |year=1970 |isbn=978-0-300-02189-9 |location=New Haven and London |page= |url-access=limited}}</ref> ] was also influenced by Nietzsche.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6163.html |title=Jung's Seminar on Nietzsche's Zarathustra |date=1997 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-691-01738-9 |editor-last=Jarrett |editor-first=J. L. |edition=abridged |access-date=22 August 2014}}</ref> In '']'', a biography transcribed by his secretary, he cites Nietzsche as a large influence.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jung's Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche: A Roadmap for the Uninitiated by Dr. Ritske Rensma |url=http://www.depthinsights.com/Depth-Insights-scholarly-ezine/e-zine-issue-3-fall-2012/jungs-reception-of-friedrich-nietzsche-a-roadmap-for-the-uninitiated-by-dr-ritske-rensma/ |access-date=22 August 2014 |publisher=Depth Insights}}</ref> Aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, especially his ideas of the self and his relation to society, run through much of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century thought.<ref name="Belliotti">{{Cite book |last=Belliotti |first=Raymond A. |title=Jesus or Nietzsche: How Should We Live Our Lives? |date=2013 |location=Amsterdam |publisher=]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kuipers |first=Ronald A. |author-link=Ronald A. Kuipers |date=2011 |title=Turning Memory into Prophecy: Roberto Unger and Paul Ricoeur on the Human Condition Between Past and Future |journal=] |pages=1–10}}</ref> Nietzsche's writings have also been influential to some advancers of ] thought through his influence on ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Deleuze |first=Gilles |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/370411932 |title=Anti-Oedipus : capitalism and schizophrenia |date=2009 |publisher=] |others=Guattari, Félix; Foucault, Michel |isbn=978-0-14-310582-4 |location=New York |oclc=370411932}}</ref> His deepening of the romantic-heroic tradition of the nineteenth century, for example, as expressed in the ideal of the "grand striver" appears in the work of thinkers from ] to ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rorty |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Rorty |date=1988 |orig-date=1987 |title=Unger, Castoriadis, and the Romance of a National Future |journal=] |volume=82 |page=39}}</ref> For Nietzsche, this grand striver overcomes obstacles, engages in epic struggles, pursues new goals, embraces recurrent novelty, and transcends existing structures and contexts.<ref name="Belliotti" />{{rp|195}}

== Works ==
{{Main|Friedrich Nietzsche bibliography}}
{{See also|List of works about Friedrich Nietzsche}}
], the inspiration for '']'']]
* '']'' (1872)
* '']'' (1873)
* '']'' (1873; first published in 1923)
* '']'' (1876)
* '']'' (1878)
* '']'' (1881)
* '']'' (1882)
* '']'' (1883)
* '']'' (1886)
* '']'' (1887)
* '']'' (1888)
* '']'' (1888)
* '']'' (1888)
* '']'' (1888; first published in 1908)
* '']'' (1888)
* '']'' (various unpublished manuscripts edited by his sister ]; not recognised as a unified work after {{Circa|1960}})
* '']'' (1888, a reconstruction of a project of work conceived by Nietzsche in ] at the end of August 1888, the last summer of his lucid life).

== See also ==
{{Portal|Philosophy|Religion|Germany|Biography}}
{{cols|colwidth=21em}}
* ]
* '']''
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* '']'' – a film about his life
* ]
{{colend}}

== References ==

=== Notes ===
{{notelist-lr|35em}}

=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

===Works cited===
<!-- These are required by short form refs in the article and shouldn't be removed. See documentation for {{sfn}}/{{harv}} templates and ] -->
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{Citation |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich Wilhelm |title=]: A Book for All and For None |year=1961 |others=trans. RJ Hollingdale |place=New York |publisher=Penguin Classics |isbn=0-14-044118-2 |orig-date=1883–85}}.
* {{Citation |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich Wilhelm |title=] |year=1887}}.
* {{Citation |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich Wilhelm |title=] |year=1888b}}.
* {{Citation |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich Wilhelm |title=] |year=2004 |place=Grand Rapids |publisher=Kessinger |ref={{harvid|Nietzsche|1888c}} |orig-year=1888c}}.
* {{Citation |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich Wilhelm |title=] |volume=Basic Writings of Nietzsche |year=2000 |others=trans. Walter Kaufmann |publisher=Modern Library |isbn=0-679-78339-3 |ref={{harvid|Nietzsche|1888d}} |orig-year=1888d}}.
* {{Citation |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich Wilhelm |title=The Pre-Platonic Philosophers |year=2001 |others=trans. Greg Whitlock |publisher=] |isbn=0-252-02559-8}}.
{{refend}}

=== Bibliography ===
{{refbegin}}
* {{Cite book |last=Cate |first=Curtis |url=https://archive.org/details/friedrichnietzsc00curt |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |publisher=] |year=2005 |location=Woodstock, N.Y. |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite book |last=Čeika |first=Jonas |title=How to philosophise with a hammer and a sickle: Nietzsche and Marx for the twenty-first century |location=London |publisher=] |year=2021 |isbn=9781913462499}}
* {{Cite book |last=Clark |first=Maudemarie |title=Nietzsche on Ethics and Politics |location=Oxford |publisher=] |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-19-937184-6}}
* {{Cite book |last=Deleuze |first=Gilles |author-link=Gilles Deleuze |title=Nietzsche and Philosophy |title-link=Nietzsche and Philosophy |publisher=Athlone Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-485-11233-7 |translator-last=Tomlinson |translator-first=Hugh |orig-date=1983}}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HBCsgS7k7lAC&q=Arnold+Zweig+Nietzsche&pg=PA185 |title=Nietzsche and Jewish culture |publisher=] |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-415-09512-9 |editor-last=Golomb |editor-first=Jacob |via=]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hayman |first=Ronald |author-link=Ronald Hayman |title=Nietzsche: A Critical Life |date=1980 |publisher=]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Heidegger |first=Martin |author-link=Martin Heidegger |title=The Word of Nietzsche}}{{Place missing}}{{Publisher missing}}{{Year missing}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hollingdale |first=R. J. |author-link=R. J. Hollingdale |url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschemanhisp00holl/page/215 |title=Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy |edition=2 |location=Cambridge |publisher=] |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-521-64091-6}}
* {{Cite book |title=Nietzsche as a Scholar of Antiquity |date=2014 |publisher=] |editor-last=Jensen |editor-first=Anthony K. |location=London |editor-last2=Heit |editor-first2=Helmut}}
* {{Cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Walter |author-link=Walter Kaufmann (philosopher) |title=Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist |edition=4 |publisher=] |year=1974 |isbn=978-0-691-01983-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00kauf}}
* {{Cite book |last=Lampert |first=Laurence |author-link=Laurence Lampert |title=Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" |publisher=] |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-300-04430-0 |location=New Haven, Conn.}}
* {{Cite book |last=Löwith |first=Karl |author-link=Karl Löwith |title=From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Thought |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1964 |isbn=0-231-07499-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/fromhegeltonietz0000lowi}}
* {{Cite encyclopedia |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/414670/Friedrich-Nietzsche |last=Magnus |first=Bernd |date=26 July 1999}}
* {{Cite book |last=Nehamas |first=Alexander |author-link=Alexander Nehamas |title=Nietzsche: Life as Literature |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1985 |isbn=9780674624351}}
* {{Cite book |last=Roochnik |first=David |author-link=David Roochnik |title=Retrieving the Ancients: An Introduction to Greek Philosophy |edition=1 |location=Malden, MA |publisher=] |year=2004}}
* {{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |author-link=Bertrand Russell |title=A History of Western Philosophy |publisher=] |year=2004}}
* {{Cite book |last=Santayana |first=George |author-link=George Santayana |title=Egotism in German Philosophy |publisher=JM Dent & Sons |year=1916 |location=London & Toronto |chapter=XI |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/egotismingerman00santuoft}}
* {{Cite book |last=Sedgwick |first=Peter R. |title=Nietzsche: the key concepts |publisher=] |year=2009 |location=Routledge, Oxon, England}}
* {{Cite book |last=Schacht |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Schacht |title=Nietzsche |location=London |publisher=] |year=1983}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Solomon |first1=Robert C. |author-link=Robert C. Solomon |last2=Higgins |first2=Kathleen Marie |author-link2=Kathleen Higgins |title=What Nietzsche Really Said |location=New York |publisher=] |year=2000 |isbn=0-8052-1094-6}}
* {{Cite book |last=Tanner |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Tanner |title=Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-19-285414-8}}
* {{cite book |last=Young |first=Julian |author-link=Julian Young |title=Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 |isbn=9780521871174}}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{Cite book |last=Arena |first=Leonardo Vittorio |title=Nietzsche in China in the XXth Century |publisher=ebook |year=2012}}
* {{cite book |last=Assoun |first=Paul-Laurent |title=Freud and Nietzsche |author-link=Paul-Laurent Assoun |location=London |publisher=] |year=2000 |isbn=0-8264-6316-9}}
* ] (1994), ''Nietzsche's Philosophy of Science'', Albany: ].
* {{citation |last=Badiou |first=Alain |author-link=Alain Badiou |title=Who is Nietzsche? |journal=Pli |volume=11 |year=2001 |pages=1–11 |url=http://www.plijournal.com/files/11_1_Badiou.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111190126/http://www.plijournal.com/files/11_1_Badiou.pdf |archive-date=11 November 2020 }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Baird |first1=Forrest E. |title=From Plato to Derrida |last2=Kaufmann |first2=Walter |author-link2=Walter Kaufmann (philosopher) |publisher=] |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-13-158591-1 |location=Upper Saddle River, NJ |pages=1011–1138}}
* {{Cite book |last=Benson |first=Bruce Ellis |author-link=Bruce Ellis Benson |title=Pious Nietzsche: Decadence and Dionysian Faith |publisher=] |year=2007 |page=296}}
* {{cite book |last=Bishop |first=Paul C. |author-link=Paul C. Bishop |title=Nietzsche's "The Anti-Christ" |location=Edinburgh |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=2022 |doi=10.1515/9781474430753|isbn=978-1-4744-3075-3 }}
* ], ''Der bauende Geist. Friedrich Nietzsche und die Architektur''. Lucerne: Quart Verlag, 2001, {{ISBN|3-907631-23-4}}
* ], ''Nietzsche's Denkraum''. Zurich: Edition Didacta, 2006, Hardcover Edition: {{ISBN|978-3-033-01206-6}}; Paperback Edition: {{ISBN|978-3-033-01148-9}}
* ], ''Nietzsche''. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941; reprint with a new preface, epilogue, and bibliography, New York: Harper Torchbooks/The Academy Library, 1965.)
* Brunger, Jeremy. 2015. ". ''Numero Cinq'' magazine (August).
* {{cite book |last=Bull |first=Malcolm |title=Anti-Nietzsche |location=London |publisher=Verso |year=2011 |isbn=9781859845745}}
* {{cite book |last1=Burnham |first1=Douglas |last2=Jesinghausen |first2=Martin |title=Nietzsche's "The Birth of Tragedy": A Reader's Guide |location=London |publisher=Continuum |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-84706-584-1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Clark |first=Maudemarie |title=Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy |location=Cambridge |publisher=] |year=1990 |isbn=9780521343688 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511624728}}
* Conway, Daniel (Ed.), '''' (Routledge, 1997)
* Corriero, Emilio Carlo, ''Nietzsche oltre l'abisso. Declinazioni italiane della 'morte di Dio''', ], Torino, 2007
* Corriero, Emilio Carlo, "Nietzsche's Death of God and Italian Philosophy". Preface by Gianni Vattimo, Rowman & Littlefield, London & New York, 2016
* Dod, Elmar, "Der unheimlichste Gast. Die Philosophie des Nihilismus". Marburg: Tectum Verlag 2013. {{ISBN|978-3-8288-3107-0}}. "Der unheimlichste Gast wird heimisch. Die Philosophie des Nihilismus – Evidenzen der Einbildungskraft". (Wissenschaftliche Beiträge Philosophie Bd. 32) Baden–Baden 2019 {{ISBN|978-3-8288-4185-7}}
* {{Cite book |last=Eilon |first=Eli |title=Nietzsche's Principle of Abundance as Guiding Aesthetic Value |publisher=Nietzsche-Studien, December 2001 (30) |pages=200–221}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Foerster-Nietzsche |first=Elizabeth |author-link=Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche |title=Nietzsche, France, and England |url=https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3431&context=ocj |journal=] |language=English |volume=1920 |issue=3 |translator-last1=Kerr |translator-first1=Caroline V. |translator-link1=Caroline V. Kerr |article-number=2}}
* ] (2008). "Nietzsche For and Against the Enlightenment," ''Review of Politics'', Vol. 70, No. 4, pp.&nbsp;595–608.
* {{Cite book |title=Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy |publisher=] |year=2002 |editor-last=Gemes |editor-first=Ken |editor-link=Ken Gemes |editor-last2=May |editor-first2=Simon}}
* Golan, Zev. ''God, Man, and Nietzsche: A Startling Dialogue between Judaism and Modern Philosophers'' (iUniverse, 2007).
* {{cite book |last=Higgins |first=Kathleen Marie |author-link=Kathleen Higgins |title=Comic Relief: Nietzsche's "Gay Science" |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-19-512691-2}}
* {{Cite encyclopedia |year=2008 |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |publisher=]; ]|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|doi= 10.4135/9781412965811.n217|isbn=978-1-4129-6580-4|oclc=750831024|lccn=2008009151|pages=355–356|chapter=Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900) |last=Hunt |first=Lester |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-first=Ronald |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC}}
* Huskinson, Lucy. ''Nietzsche and Jung: The whole self in the union of opposites'' (London and New York: Routledge, 2004)
* Kaplan, Erman. ''Cosmological Aesthetics through the Kantian Sublime and Nietzschean Dionysian''. Lanham: UPA, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
* {{cite book |last=Katsafanas |first=Paul |title=The Nietzschean Self: Moral Psychology, Agency, and the Unconscious |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2016 |isbn=9780198737100 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198737100.001.0001}}
* ], ''S Nietzscheom o Europi'', Jesenski i Turk, Zagreb, 2001 {{ISBN|978-953-222-016-2}}
* {{cite book |last=Leiter |first=Brian |author-link=Brian Leiter |title=Moral Psychology with Nietzsche |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-19-969650-5 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780199696505.001.0001}}
* {{citation |last=Leiter |first=Brian |author-link=Brian Leiter |chapter=The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud |title=The Future for Philosophy |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=2004 |pages=74–105 |isbn=978-0-19-920392-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Losurdo |first=Domenico |author-link=Domenico Losurdo |title=Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel: Intellectual Biography and Critical Balance-Sheet |location=Leiden |publisher=] |year=2019 |isbn=9789004270947 |doi=10.1163/9789004270954}}
* {{Cite book |last=Luchte |first=James |title=Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Before Sunrise |publisher=] |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4411-1653-6 |location=London}}
* {{Cite book |last=Magnus |first=Bernd |title=Nietzsche's Existential Imperative |location=Bloomington, IN |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1978}}
* {{citation |last1=Magnus |first1=Bernd |last2=Higgins |first2=Kathleen Marie |author-link2=Kathleen Higgins |chapter=Nietzsche's works and their themes |title=The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche |editor-last=Magnus |editor-first=Bernd |editor-last2=Higgins |editor-first2=Kathleen Marie |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1996 |pages=21–58 |isbn=0-521-36767-0 |doi=10.1017/CCOL0521365864.002}}
* {{Cite book |last=Makarushka |first=Irena S. M. |title=Religious Imagination and Language in Emerson and Nietzsche |publisher=Macmillan |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-333-56976-4 |location=London}}
* {{cite book |last=Manschot |first=Henk |title=Nietzsche and the Earth: Biography, Ecology, Politics |location=London |publisher=] |year=2020 |isbn=9781350134393}}
* {{citation |last=Norris |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Norris (critic) |title=Between Marx and Nietzsche: The Prospect for Critical Theory |journal=Journal of Literary Semantics |volume=10 |issue=2 |year=2009 |pages=104–115 |doi=10.1515/jlse.1981.10.2.104|doi-broken-date=3 December 2024 }}
* O'Flaherty, James C., Sellner, Timothy F., Helm, Robert M., ''Studies in Nietzsche and the Classical Tradition'' (]) 1979 {{ISBN|0-8078-8085-X}}
* O'Flaherty, James C., Sellner, Timothy F., Helm, Robert M., ''Studies in Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian Tradition'' (University of North Carolina Press) 1985 {{ISBN|0-8078-8104-X}}
* Owen, David. ''Nietzsche, Politics & Modernity'' (London: Sage Publications, 1995).
* {{citation |editor-last=Payne |editor-first=Christine A. |editor-last2=Roberts |editor-first2=Michael James |title=Nietzsche and Critical Social Theory: Affirmation, Animosity, and Ambiguity |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill |year=2020 |isbn=978-90-04-33735-0 |doi=10.1163/9789004415577}}
* {{citation |last=Pérez |first=Rolando |title=Towards a Genealogy of the Gay Science: From Toulouse and Barcelona to Nietzsche and Beyond |journal=EHumanista/IVITRA |volume=5 |year=2014 |pages=546–703 |issn=1540-5877 |url=http://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/eHumanista%20IVITRA/Volume%205/Volum%20Regular/7_Perez.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140924114053/http://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/eHumanista%20IVITRA/Volume%205/Volum%20Regular/7_Perez.pdf |archive-date=24 September 2014 }}
* {{cite book |last=Pippin |first=Robert B. |author-link=Robert B. Pippin |title=Nietzsche, Psychology, and First Philosophy |location=Chicago |publisher=] |year=2010 |isbn=9780226669755}}
* Porter, James I. ''Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future'' (Stanford University Press, 2000). {{ISBN|0-8047-3698-7}}
* {{Cite book |last=Porter |first=James I. |title=The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on The Birth of Tragedy |publisher=] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-8047-3700-5}}
* ], ''Nietzsche in Italy'' (Pushkin Press, 2022). {{ISBN|978-1-78227-728-6}}. Translation by Will Stone of ''Nietzsche en Italie'', Bernard Grasset, 1929.
* ], ''] A Life of Nietzsche'' (] (UK) and ] (US), 2018)
* ] (2011), ''].'' Chicago: ].
* {{cite book |last=Richardson |first=John |author-link=John Richardson (philosopher) |title=Nietzsche's System |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1996 |doi=10.1093/0195098463.001.0001|isbn=0-19-509846-3 }}
* {{cite book |last=Richardson |first=John |author-link=John Richardson (philosopher) |title=Nietzsche's New Darwinism |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/0195171039.001.0001|isbn=0-19-517103-9 }}
* {{cite book |last=Richardson |first=John |author-link=John Richardson (philosopher) |title=Nietzsche's Values |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-19-009823-0 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780190098230.001.0001}}
* {{Cite news |last=Ruehl |first=Martin |date=2 January 2018 |title=In defence of slavery: Nietzsche's Dangerous Thinking |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/nietzsche-ideas-superman-slavery-nihilism-adolf-hitler-nazi-racism-white-supremacy-fascism-a8138396.html |access-date=18 August 2018 |work=]}}
* {{Cite EB1911 |wstitle= Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm |volume=19 |last=Schiller |first=Ferdinand Canning Scott |author-link=Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller |page=672 |short=1}}
* ] ''Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra''. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2005. {{ISBN|0-7391-1130-2}}
* {{Cite book |last=Shapiro |first=Gary |title=Archaeologies of Vision: Foucault and Nietzsche on Seeing and Saying |publisher=] |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-226-75047-7 |location=Chicago}}
* {{Cite book |last=Shapiro |first=Gary |title=Nietzsche's Earth: Great Events, Great Politics |publisher=] |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-226-39445-9 |location=Chicago}}
* {{Cite book |last=Shapiro |first=Gary |url=https://archive.org/details/alcyonenietzsche0000shap |title=Alcyone: Nietzsche on Gifts, Noise, and Women |publisher=] |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-7914-0742-4 |location=Albany}}
* {{cite book |last=Sloterdijk |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Sloterdijk |title=Nietzsche Apostle |location=Los Angeles |publisher=] |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-58435-099-6}}
* {{Cite book |last=Tanner |first=Michael |title=Nietzsche |location=Oxford |publisher=] |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-19-287680-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschepastmas00mich}}
* {{Cite book |last=Tutt |first=Daniel |title=How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on Nietzsche |location=London |publisher=] |year=2024 |isbn=9781914420627}}
* {{cite book |last=Vattimo |first=Gianni |author-link=Gianni Vattimo |title=The Adventure of Difference: Philosophy after Nietzsche and Heidegger |location=Baltimore |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=1993 |isbn=0-8018-4643-9}}
* {{Cite book |last=von Vacano |first=Diego |title=The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche and the Making of Aesthetic Political Theory |publisher=] |year=2007 |location=Lanham, MD}}.
* {{cite book |last=Waite |first=Geoff |title=Nietzsche's Corps/e: Aesthetics, Prophecy, Politics, or, The Spectacular Technoculture of Everyday Life |location=Durham, NC |publisher=Duke University Press |year=1996 |url=https://monoskop.org/images/1/1d/Waite_Geoff_Nietzsches_Corps-e_Aesthetics_Politics_Prophecy.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111202045/https://monoskop.org/images/1/1d/Waite_Geoff_Nietzsches_Corps-e_Aesthetics_Politics_Prophecy.pdf |archive-date=11 November 2020 }}
* Wallis, Glenn. (2024), '''', New York City: Warbler Press.
* Weir, Simon & Hill Glen. (2021), "Making space for degenerate thinking: revaluing architecture with Friedrich Nietzsche." arq: architecture research quarterly 25:2.
* {{cite book |last=Welshon |first=Rex |title=Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality: A Guide |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2023 |isbn=9780197611821 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780197611814.001.0001}}
* {{Cite encyclopedia |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/nietzsche/ |last=Wicks |first=Robert |editor-last=Edward N. Zalta |edition=Fall 2004}}
* {{cite book |last=Zupančič |first=Alenka |author-link=Alenka Zupančič |title=The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=] |year=2003 |isbn=0-262-74026-5}}
{{Refend}}

== External links ==
{{Sister project links|wikt=no|s=Author:Friedrich Nietzsche|b=no|n=no|voy=no|v=Friedrich Nietzsche annotated bibliography|Friedrich Nietzsche}}
* at Britannica.com
*
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/friedrich-nietzsche}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=779}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Nietzsche}}
* {{Librivox author |id=411}}
* {{Helveticat}}
* {{cite IEP |url-id=nietzsch |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |last=Wilkerson |first=Dale|year=2009}}
** {{cite IEP |url-id=nietzsches-ethics |title=Nietzsche's Ethics |last=Kirwin |first=Claire}}
** {{cite IEP |url-id=niet-his |title=Nietzsche's Philosophy of History |last=Jensen |first=Anthony K.}}
* {{cite SEP |url-id=nietzsche |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |last=Wicks |first=Robert|date=14 November 2007}}
** {{cite SEP |url-id=nietzsche-moral-political |title=Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy |last=Leiter |first=Brian |author-link=Brian Leiter |date=27 July 2007}}
*
* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210514094631/http://lexido.com/ |date=14 May 2021}}
* {{IMSLP|id=Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm}}
*
* Walter Kaufmann 1960 (audio)
* {{Cite journal |last=Kierans |first=Kenneth |year=2010 |title=On the Unity of Nietzsche's Philosophy |url=http://www2.swgc.mun.ca/animus/Articles/Volume%2014/9_Kierans.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=] |volume=14 |issn=1209-0689 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003192327/http://www2.swgc.mun.ca/animus/Articles/Volume%2014/9_Kierans.pdf |archive-date=3 October 2011 |access-date=17 August 2011}}
* Burkhart Brückner, Robin Pape: in: .
* {{PM20|FID=pe/012893}}
* ] (1991) Video Lectures
{{Nietzsche|expanded}}
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Latest revision as of 05:52, 19 December 2024

German philosopher (1844–1900) "Nietzsche" redirects here. For other uses, see Nietzsche (disambiguation).

Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche in Basel, Switzerland, c. 1875
BornFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(1844-10-15)15 October 1844
Röcken, Province of Saxony, Prussia, German Confederation
Died25 August 1900(1900-08-25) (aged 55)
Weimar, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, German Empire
Resting placeRöcken Churchyard
Alma mater
Era19th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
School Other schools
InstitutionsUniversity of Basel
Main interests
Notable ideas  
Signature

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland in 1869, at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897, and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes.

Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R. J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.

Life

Youth (1844–1868)

Born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the town of Röcken (now part of Lützen), near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who turned 49 on the day of Nietzsche's birth (Nietzsche later dropped his middle name Wilhelm). Nietzsche's great-grandfather, Gotthelf Engelbert Nietzsche [ja] (1714–1804), was an inspector and a philosopher. Nietzsche's grandfather, Friedrich August Ludwig Nietzsche [de] (1756–1826), was a theologian. Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–1849), a Lutheran pastor and former teacher; and Franziska Nietzsche [de] (née Oehler) (1826–1897), married in 1843, the year before their son's birth. They had two other children: a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846; and a second son, Ludwig Joseph, born in 1848. Nietzsche's father died from a brain disease in 1849, after a year of excruciating agony, when the boy was only four years old; Ludwig Joseph died six months later at age two. The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsche's maternal grandmother and his father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre.

Young Nietzsche, 1861

Nietzsche attended a boys' school and then a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug and Wilhelm Pinder, both of whom came from highly respected families. Academic records from one of the schools attended by Nietzsche noted that he excelled in Christian theology.

In 1854, he began to attend the Domgymnasium in Naumburg. Because his father had worked for the state (as a pastor) the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognised Schulpforta. The claim that Nietzsche was admitted on the strength of his academic competence has been debunked: his grades were not near the top of the class. He studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with Paul Deussen and Carl von Gersdorff (1844–1904), who later became a jurist. He also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led "Germania", a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg. At Schulpforta, Nietzsche received an important grounding in languages—Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and French—so as to be able to read important primary sources; he also experienced for the first time being away from his family life in a small-town conservative environment. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 showed a 1 in Religion and German; a 2a in Greek and Latin; a 2b in French, History, and Physics; and a "lackluster" 3 in Hebrew and Mathematics.

Nietzsche was an amateur composer. He composed several works for voice, piano, and violin beginning in 1858 at the Schulpforta in Naumburg when he started to work on musical compositions. Richard Wagner was dismissive of Nietzsche's music, allegedly mocking a birthday gift of a piano composition sent by Nietzsche in 1871 to Wagner's wife Cosima. German conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow also described another of Nietzsche's pieces as "the most undelightful and the most anti-musical draft on musical paper that I have faced in a long time".

While at Schulpforta, Nietzsche pursued subjects that were considered unbecoming. He became acquainted with the work of the then almost-unknown poet Friedrich Hölderlin, calling him "my favorite poet" and writing an essay in which he said that the poet raised consciousness to "the most sublime ideality". The teacher who corrected the essay gave it a good mark but commented that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more lucid, and more "German" writers. Additionally, he became acquainted with Ernst Ortlepp, an eccentric, blasphemous, and often drunken poet who was found dead in a ditch weeks after meeting the young Nietzsche but who may have introduced Nietzsche to the music and writing of Richard Wagner. Perhaps under Ortlepp's influence, he and a student named Richter returned to school drunk and encountered a teacher, resulting in Nietzsche's demotion from first in his class and the end of his status as a prefect.

Young Nietzsche

After graduation in September 1864, Nietzsche began studying theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn in the hope of becoming a minister. For a short time, he and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft Frankonia. After one semester (and to the anger of his mother), he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith. As early as his 1862 essay "Fate and History", Nietzsche had argued that historical research had discredited the central teachings of Christianity, but David Strauss's Life of Jesus also seems to have had a profound effect on the young man. In addition, Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity influenced young Nietzsche with its argument that people created God, and not the other way around. In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith. This letter contains the following statement:

Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire....

Arthur Schopenhauer strongly influenced Nietzsche's philosophical thought.

Nietzsche subsequently concentrated on studying philology under Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, whom he followed to the University of Leipzig in 1865. There he became close friends with his fellow student Erwin Rohde. Nietzsche's first philological publications appeared soon after.

In 1865, Nietzsche thoroughly studied the works of Arthur Schopenhauer. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation and later admitted that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers whom he respected, dedicating the essay "Schopenhauer as Educator" in the Untimely Meditations to him.

In 1866, he read Friedrich Albert Lange's History of Materialism. Lange's descriptions of Kant's anti-materialistic philosophy, the rise of European Materialism, Europe's increased concern with science, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the general rebellion against tradition and authority intrigued Nietzsche greatly. Nietzsche would ultimately argue the impossibility of an evolutionary explanation of the human aesthetic sense.

In 1867, Nietzsche signed up for one year of voluntary service with the Prussian artillery division in Naumburg. He was regarded as one of the finest riders among his fellow recruits, and his officers predicted that he would soon reach the rank of captain. However, in March 1868, while jumping into the saddle of his horse, Nietzsche struck his chest against the pommel and tore two muscles in his left side, leaving him exhausted and unable to walk for months. Consequently, he turned his attention to his studies again, completing them in 1868. Nietzsche also met Richard Wagner for the first time later that year.

Professor at Basel (1869–1879)

Left to right: Erwin Rohde, Karl von Gersdorff and Nietzsche, October 1871

In 1869, with Ritschl's support, Nietzsche received an offer to become a professor of classical philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland. He was only 24 years old and had neither completed his doctorate nor received a teaching certificate ("habilitation"). He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Leipzig University in March 1869, again with Ritschl's support.

Despite his offer coming at a time when he was considering giving up philology for science, he accepted. To this day, Nietzsche is still among the youngest of the tenured Classics professors on record.

Nietzsche's 1870 projected doctoral thesis, "Contribution toward the Study and the Critique of the Sources of Diogenes Laertius" ("Beiträge zur Quellenkunde und Kritik des Laertius Diogenes"), examined the origins of the ideas of Diogenes Laërtius. Though never submitted, it was later published as a Gratulationsschrift ('congratulatory publication') in Basel.

Before moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship: for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.

Nevertheless, Nietzsche served in the Prussian forces during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) as a medical orderly. In his short time in the military, he experienced much and witnessed the traumatic effects of battle. He also contracted diphtheria and dysentery. Walter Kaufmann speculates that he also contracted syphilis at a brothel along with his other infections at this time. On returning to Basel in 1870, Nietzsche observed the establishment of the German Empire and Otto von Bismarck's subsequent policies as an outsider and with a degree of scepticism regarding their genuineness. His inaugural lecture at the university was "Homer and Classical Philology". Nietzsche also met Franz Overbeck, a professor of theology who remained his friend throughout his life. Afrikan Spir, a little-known Russian philosopher responsible for the 1873 Thought and Reality and Nietzsche's colleague, the historian Jacob Burckhardt, whose lectures Nietzsche frequently attended, began to exercise significant influence on him.

Nietzsche had already met Richard Wagner in Leipzig in 1868 and later Wagner's wife, Cosima. Nietzsche admired both greatly and during his time at Basel frequently visited Wagner's house in Tribschen in Lucerne. The Wagners brought Nietzsche into their most intimate circle—which included Franz Liszt, of whom Nietzsche colloquially described: "Liszt or the art of running after women!" Nietzsche enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of the Bayreuth Festival. In 1870, he gave Cosima Wagner the manuscript of "The Genesis of the Tragic Idea" as a birthday gift. In 1872, Nietzsche published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy. However, his colleagues within his field, including Ritschl, expressed little enthusiasm for the work in which Nietzsche eschewed the classical philologic method in favour of a more speculative approach. In his polemic Philology of the Future, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff damped the book's reception and increased its notoriety. In response, Rohde (then a professor in Kiel) and Wagner came to Nietzsche's defence. Nietzsche remarked freely about the isolation he felt within the philological community and attempted unsuccessfully to transfer to a position in philosophy at Basel.

Nietzsche, c. 1872

In 1873, Nietzsche began to accumulate notes that would be posthumously published as Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. Between 1873 and 1876, he published four separate long essays: "David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer", "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life", "Schopenhauer as Educator", and "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth". These four later appeared in a collected edition under the title Untimely Meditations. The essays shared the orientation of a cultural critique, challenging the developing German culture suggested by Schopenhauer and Wagner. During this time in the circle of the Wagners, he met Malwida von Meysenbug and Hans von Bülow. He also began a friendship with Paul Rée who, in 1876, influenced him into dismissing the pessimism in his early writings. However, he was deeply disappointed by the Bayreuth Festival of 1876, where the banality of the shows and baseness of the public repelled him. He was also alienated by Wagner's championing of "German culture", which Nietzsche felt a contradiction in terms, as well as by Wagner's celebration of his fame among the German public. All this contributed to his subsequent decision to distance himself from Wagner.

With the publication in 1878 of Human, All Too Human (a book of aphorisms ranging from metaphysics to morality to religion), a new style of Nietzsche's work became clear, highly influenced by Afrikan Spir's Thought and Reality and reacting against the pessimistic philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer. Nietzsche's friendship with Deussen and Rohde cooled as well. In 1879, after a significant decline in health, Nietzsche had to resign his position at Basel and was pensioned. Since his childhood, various disruptive illnesses had plagued him, including moments of shortsightedness that left him nearly blind, migraine headaches, and violent indigestion. The 1868 riding accident and diseases in 1870 may have aggravated these persistent conditions, which continued to affect him through his years at Basel, forcing him to take longer and longer holidays until regular work became impractical.

Independent philosopher (1879–1888)

Lou Salomé, Paul Rée and Nietzsche travelled through Italy in 1882, planning to establish an educational commune together, but the friendship disintegrated in late 1882 due to complications from Rée's and Nietzsche's mutual romantic interest in Salomé.

Living on his pension from Basel along with aid from friends, Nietzsche travelled frequently to find climates more conducive to his health. He lived until 1889 as an independent author in different cities. He spent many summers in Sils Maria near St. Moritz in Switzerland, and many of his winters in the Italian cities of Genoa, Rapallo, and Turin and the French city of Nice. In 1881, when France occupied Tunisia, he planned to travel to Tunis to view Europe from the outside but later abandoned that idea, probably for health reasons. Nietzsche occasionally returned to Naumburg to visit his family, and, especially during this time, he and his sister Elisabeth had repeated periods of conflict and reconciliation.

While in Genoa, Nietzsche's failing eyesight prompted him to explore the use of typewriters as a means of continuing to write. He is known to have tried using the Hansen Writing Ball, a contemporary typewriter device. In the end, a past student of his, Peter Gast, became a private secretary to Nietzsche. In 1876, Gast transcribed the crabbed, nearly illegible handwriting of Nietzsche's first time with Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. He subsequently transcribed and proofread the galleys for almost all of Nietzsche's work. On at least one occasion, on 23 February 1880, the usually poor Gast received 200 marks from their mutual friend, Paul Rée. Gast was one of the very few friends Nietzsche allowed to criticise him. In responding most enthusiastically to Also Sprach Zarathustra ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra"), Gast did feel it necessary to point out that what were described as "superfluous" people were in fact quite necessary. He went on to list the number of people Epicurus, for example, had to rely on to supply his simple diet of goat cheese.

To the end of his life, Gast and Overbeck remained consistently faithful friends. Malwida von Meysenbug remained like a motherly patron even outside the Wagner circle. Soon Nietzsche made contact with the music-critic Carl Fuchs. Nietzsche stood at the beginning of his most productive period. Beginning with Human, All Too Human in 1878, Nietzsche published one book or major section of a book each year until 1888, his last year of writing; that year, he completed five.

In 1882, Nietzsche published the first part of The Gay Science. That year he also met Lou Andreas-Salomé, through Malwida von Meysenbug and Paul Rée.

Salomé's mother took her to Rome when Salomé was 21. At a literary salon in the city, Salomé became acquainted with Paul Rée. Rée proposed marriage to her, but she, instead, proposed that they should live and study together as "brother and sister", along with another man for company, where they would establish an academic commune. Rée accepted the idea and suggested that they be joined by his friend Nietzsche. The two met Nietzsche in Rome in April 1882, and Nietzsche is believed to have instantly fallen in love with Salomé, as Rée had done. Nietzsche asked Rée to propose marriage to Salomé, which she rejected. She had been interested in Nietzsche as a friend, but not as a husband. Nietzsche nonetheless was content to join with Rée and Salomé touring through Switzerland and Italy together, planning their commune. The three travelled with Salomé's mother through Italy and considered where they would set up their "Winterplan" commune. They intended to set up their commune in an abandoned monastery, but no suitable location was found. On 13 May, in Lucerne, when Nietzsche was alone with Salomé, he earnestly proposed marriage to her again, which she rejected. He nonetheless was happy to continue with the plans for an academic commune. After discovering the relationship, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became determined to get Nietzsche away from the "immoral woman". Nietzsche and Salomé spent the summer together in Tautenburg in Thuringia, often with Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth as a chaperone. Salomé reports that he asked her to marry him on three separate occasions and that she refused, though the reliability of her reports of events is questionable. Arriving in Leipzig (Germany) in October, Salomé and Rée separated from Nietzsche after a falling-out between Nietzsche and Salomé, in which Salomé believed that Nietzsche was desperately in love with her.

While the three spent a number of weeks together in Leipzig in October 1882, the following month Rée and Salomé left Nietzsche, leaving for Stibbe (today Zdbowo in Poland) without any plans to meet again. Nietzsche soon fell into a period of mental anguish, although he continued to write to Rée, stating "We shall see one another from time to time, won't we?" In later recriminations, Nietzsche would blame on separate occasions the failure in his attempts to woo Salomé on Salomé, Rée, and on the intrigues of his sister (who had written letters to the families of Salomé and Rée to disrupt the plans for the commune). Nietzsche wrote of the affair in 1883, that he now felt "genuine hatred for my sister".

Amidst renewed bouts of illness, living in near-isolation after a falling out with his mother and sister regarding Salomé, Nietzsche fled to Rapallo, where he wrote the first part of Also Sprach Zarathustra in only ten days.

Photo of Nietzsche by Gustav-Adolf Schultze, 1882

By 1882, Nietzsche was taking huge doses of opium and continued to have trouble sleeping. In 1883, while staying in Nice, he was writing out his own prescriptions for the sedative chloral hydrate, signing them "Dr. Nietzsche".

He turned away from the influence of Schopenhauer, and after he severed his social ties with Wagner, Nietzsche had few remaining friends. Now, with the new style of Zarathustra, his work became even more alienating, and the market received it only to the degree required by politeness. Nietzsche recognised this and maintained his solitude, though he often complained. His books remained largely unsold. In 1885, he printed only 40 copies of the fourth part of Zarathustra and distributed a fraction of them among close friends, including Helene von Druskowitz.

In 1883, he tried and failed to obtain a lecturing post at the University of Leipzig. According to a letter he wrote to Peter Gast, this was due to his "attitude towards Christianity and the concept of God".

In 1886, Nietzsche broke with his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner, disgusted by his antisemitic opinions. Nietzsche saw his own writings as "completely buried and in this anti-Semitic dump" of Schmeitzner—associating the publisher with a movement that should be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind". He then printed Beyond Good and Evil at his own expense. He also acquired the publication rights for his earlier works and over the next year issued second editions of The Birth of Tragedy, Human, All Too Human, Daybreak, and of The Gay Science with new prefaces placing the body of his work in a more coherent perspective. Thereafter, he saw his work as completed for a time and hoped that soon a readership would develop. In fact, interest in Nietzsche's thought did increase at this time, if rather slowly and imperceptibly to him. During these years Nietzsche met Meta von Salis, Carl Spitteler, and Gottfried Keller.

In 1886, his sister Elisabeth married the antisemite Bernhard Förster and travelled to Paraguay to found Nueva Germania, a "Germanic" colony. Through correspondence, Nietzsche's relationship with Elisabeth continued through cycles of conflict and reconciliation, but they met again only after his collapse. He continued to have frequent and painful attacks of illness, which made prolonged work impossible.

In 1887, Nietzsche wrote the polemic On the Genealogy of Morality. During the same year, he encountered the work of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, to whom he felt an immediate kinship. He also exchanged letters with Hippolyte Taine and Georg Brandes. Brandes, who had started to teach the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard in the 1870s, wrote to Nietzsche asking him to read Kierkegaard, to which Nietzsche replied that he would come to Copenhagen and read Kierkegaard with him. However, before fulfilling this promise, Nietzsche slipped too far into illness. At the beginning of 1888, Brandes delivered in Copenhagen one of the first lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy.

Although Nietzsche had previously announced at the end of On the Genealogy of Morality a new work with the title The Will to Power: Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values, he seems to have abandoned this idea and, instead, used some of the draft passages to compose Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist in 1888.

His health improved and he spent the summer in high spirits. In the autumn of 1888, his writings and letters began to reveal a higher estimation of his own status and "fate". He overestimated the increasing response to his writings, however, especially to the recent polemic, The Case of Wagner. On his 44th birthday, after completing Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist, he decided to write the autobiography Ecce Homo. In its preface—which suggests Nietzsche was well aware of the interpretive difficulties his work would generate—he declares, "Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else." In December, Nietzsche began a correspondence with August Strindberg and thought that, short of an international breakthrough, he would attempt to buy back his older writings from the publisher and have them translated into other European languages. Moreover, he planned the publication of the compilation Nietzsche contra Wagner and of the poems that made up his collection Dionysian-Dithyrambs.

Mental illness and death (1889–1900)

Drawing by Hans Olde from the photographic series The Ill Nietzsche, late 1899

On 3 January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown. Two policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the streets of Turin. What happened remains unknown, but an often-repeated tale from shortly after his death states that Nietzsche witnessed the flogging of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms around its neck to protect it, then collapsed to the ground. In the following few days, Nietzsche sent short writings—known as the Wahnzettel or Wahnbriefe (literally "Delusion notes" or "letters")—to a number of friends including Cosima Wagner and Jacob Burckhardt. Most of them were signed "Dionysus", though some were also signed "der Gekreuzigte" meaning "the crucified one". To his former colleague Burckhardt, Nietzsche wrote:

I have had Caiaphas put in fetters. Also, last year I was crucified by the German doctors in a very drawn-out manner. Wilhelm, Bismarck, and all anti-Semites abolished.

Additionally, he commanded the German emperor to go to Rome to be shot and summoned the European powers to take military action against Germany, writing also that the pope should be put in jail and that he, Nietzsche, created the world and was in the process of having all anti-Semites shot dead.

Nietzsche in care of his sister, 1899

On 6 January 1889, Burckhardt showed the letter he had received from Nietzsche to Overbeck. The following day, Overbeck received a similar letter and decided that Nietzsche's friends had to bring him back to Basel. Overbeck travelled to Turin and brought Nietzsche to a psychiatric clinic in Basel. By that time Nietzsche appeared fully in the grip of a serious mental illness, and his mother Franziska decided to transfer him to a clinic in Jena under the direction of Otto Binswanger. In January 1889, they proceeded with the planned release of Twilight of the Idols, by that time already printed and bound. From November 1889 to February 1890, the art historian Julius Langbehn attempted to cure Nietzsche, claiming that the methods of the medical doctors were ineffective in treating Nietzsche's condition. Langbehn assumed progressively greater control of Nietzsche until his secretiveness discredited him. In March 1890, Franziska removed Nietzsche from the clinic and, in May 1890, brought him to her home in Naumburg. During this process Overbeck and Gast contemplated what to do with Nietzsche's unpublished works. In February, they ordered a fifty-copy private edition of Nietzsche contra Wagner, but the publisher C. G. Naumann secretly printed one hundred. Overbeck and Gast decided to withhold publishing The Antichrist and Ecce Homo because of their more radical content. Nietzsche's reception and recognition enjoyed their first surge.

In 1893, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth returned from Nueva Germania in Paraguay following the suicide of her husband. She studied Nietzsche's works and, piece by piece, took control of their publication. Overbeck was dismissed and Gast finally co-operated. After the death of Franziska in 1897, Nietzsche lived in Weimar, where Elisabeth cared for him and allowed visitors, including Rudolf Steiner (who in 1895 had written Friedrich Nietzsche: A Fighter Against His Time, one of the first books praising Nietzsche), to meet her uncommunicative brother. Elisabeth employed Steiner as a tutor to help her to understand her brother's philosophy. Steiner abandoned the attempt after only a few months, declaring that it was impossible to teach her anything about philosophy.

After the breakdown, Peter Gast "corrected" Nietzsche's writings without his approval.

Nietzsche's insanity was originally diagnosed as tertiary syphilis, in accordance with a prevailing medical paradigm of the time. Although most commentators regard his breakdown as unrelated to his philosophy, Georges Bataille wrote poetically of his condition ("'Man incarnate' must also go mad") and René Girard's postmortem psychoanalysis posits a worshipful rivalry with Richard Wagner. Girard suggests that Nietzsche signed his final letters as both Dionysus and the Crucified One because he was demonstrating that by being a god (Dionysus), one is also a victim (Crucified One) since a god still suffers by overcoming the law. Nietzsche had previously written, "All superior men who were irresistibly drawn to throw off the yoke of any kind of morality and to frame new laws had, if they were not actually mad, no alternative but to make themselves or pretend to be mad." (Daybreak, 14) The diagnosis of syphilis has since been challenged and a diagnosis of "manic-depressive illness with periodic psychosis followed by vascular dementia" was put forward by Cybulska prior to Schain's study. Leonard Sax suggested the slow growth of a right-sided retro-orbital meningioma as an explanation of Nietzsche's dementia; Orth and Trimble postulated frontotemporal dementia while other researchers have proposed a hereditary stroke disorder called CADASIL. Poisoning by mercury, a treatment for syphilis at the time of Nietzsche's death, has also been suggested.

In 1898 and 1899, Nietzsche suffered at least two strokes. They partially paralysed him, leaving him unable to speak or walk. He likely suffered from clinical hemiparesis/hemiplegia on the left side of his body by 1899. After contracting pneumonia in mid-August 1900, he had another stroke during the night of 24–25 August and died at about noon on 25 August. Elisabeth had him buried beside his father at the church in Röcken near Lützen. His friend and secretary Gast gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: "Holy be your name to all future generations!"

Nietzsche's grave at Röcken in Germany.

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche compiled The Will to Power from Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks and published it posthumously in 1901. Because his sister arranged the book based on her own conflation of several of Nietzsche's early outlines and took liberties with the material, the scholarly consensus has been that it does not reflect Nietzsche's intent. (For example, Elisabeth removed aphorism 35 of The Antichrist, where Nietzsche rewrote a passage of the Bible.) Indeed, Mazzino Montinari, the editor of Nietzsche's Nachlass, called it a forgery. Yet, the endeavour to rescue Nietzsche's reputation by discrediting The Will to Power often leads to scepticism about the value of his late notes, even of his whole Nachlass. However, his Nachlass and The Will to Power are distinct.

Citizenship, nationality, and ethnicity

General commentators and Nietzsche scholars, whether emphasising his cultural background or his language, overwhelmingly label Nietzsche as a "German philosopher." Others do not assign him a national category. While Germany had not yet been unified into a single sovereign state, Nietzsche was born a citizen of Prussia, which was mostly part of the German Confederation. His birthplace, Röcken, is in the modern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. When he accepted his post at Basel, Nietzsche applied for annulment of his Prussian citizenship. The official revocation of his citizenship came in a document dated 17 April 1869, and for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.

Bust of Nietzsche, by Max Klinger, 1903–1904, at the Städel, Frankfurt

At least toward the end of his life, Nietzsche believed his ancestors were Polish. He wore a signet ring bearing the Radwan coat of arms, traceable back to Polish nobility of medieval times and the surname "Nicki" of the Polish noble (szlachta) family bearing that coat of arms. Gotard Nietzsche, a member of the Nicki family, left Poland for Prussia. His descendants later settled in the Electorate of Saxony circa the year 1700. Nietzsche wrote in 1888, "My ancestors were Polish noblemen (Nietzky); the type seems to have been well preserved despite three generations of German mothers." At one point, Nietzsche became even more adamant about his Polish identity. "I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood." On yet another occasion, Nietzsche stated, "Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.... I am proud of my Polish descent." Nietzsche believed his name might have been Germanised, in one letter claiming, "I was taught to ascribe the origin of my blood and name to Polish noblemen who were called Niëtzky and left their home and nobleness about a hundred years ago, finally yielding to unbearable suppression: they were Protestants."

Most scholars dispute Nietzsche's account of his family's origins. Hans von Müller debunked the genealogy put forward by Nietzsche's sister in favour of Polish noble heritage. Max Oehler, Nietzsche's cousin and curator of the Nietzsche Archive at Weimar, argued that all of Nietzsche's ancestors bore German names, including the wives' families. Oehler claims that Nietzsche came from a long line of German Lutheran clergymen on both sides of his family, and modern scholars regard the claim of Nietzsche's Polish ancestry as "pure invention." Colli and Montinari, the editors of Nietzsche's assembled letters, gloss Nietzsche's claims as a "mistaken belief" and "without foundation." The name Nietzsche itself is not a Polish name, but an exceptionally common one throughout central Germany, in this and cognate forms (such as Nitsche and Nitzke). The name derives from the forename Nikolaus, abbreviated to Nick; assimilated with the Slavic Nitz; it first became Nitsche and then Nietzsche.

It is not known why Nietzsche wanted to be thought of as Polish nobility. According to biographer R. J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche's propagation of the Polish ancestry myth may have been part of his "campaign against Germany." Nicholas D. More states that Nietzsche's claims of having an illustrious lineage were a parody on autobiographical conventions, and suspects Ecce Homo, with its self-laudatory titles, such as "Why I Am So Wise", as being a work of satire. He concludes that Nietzsche's supposed Polish genealogy was a joke—not a delusion.

Relationships and sexuality

Nietzsche was never married. He proposed to Lou Salomé three times and each time was rejected. One theory blames Salomé's view on sexuality as one of the reasons for her alienation from Nietzsche. As articulated in her 1898 novella Fenitschka, Salomé viewed the idea of sexual intercourse as prohibitive and marriage as a violation, with some suggesting that they indicated sexual repression and neurosis. Reflecting on unrequited love, Nietzsche considered that "indispensable ... to the lover is his unrequited love, which he would at no price relinquish for a state of indifference".

Deussen cited the episode of Cologne's brothel in February 1865 as instrumental to understanding the philosopher's way of thinking, mostly about women. Nietzsche was surreptitiously accompanied to a "call house" from which he clumsily escaped upon seeing "a half dozen apparitions dressed in sequins and veils." According to Deussen, Nietzsche "never decided to remain unmarried all his life. For him, women had to sacrifice themselves to the care and benefit of men." Nietzsche scholar Joachim Köhler [de] has attempted to explain Nietzsche's life history and philosophy by claiming that he was homosexual. Köhler argues that Nietzsche's supposed syphilis, which is "... usually considered to be the product of his encounter with a prostitute in a brothel in Cologne or Leipzig, is equally likely. Some maintain that Nietzsche contracted it in a male brothel in Genoa." The acquisition of the infection from a homosexual brothel was the theory believed by Sigmund Freud, who cited Otto Binswanger as his source. Köhler also suggests that Nietzsche had a romantic relationship, as well as a friendship, with Paul Rée. There is the claim that Nietzsche's homosexuality was widely known in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, with Nietzsche's friend Paul Deussen claiming that "he was a man who had never touched a woman."

Köhler's views have not found wide acceptance among Nietzsche scholars and commentators. Allan Megill argues that, while Köhler's claim that Nietzsche was conflicted about his homosexual desire cannot simply be dismissed, "the evidence is very weak," and Köhler may be projecting twentieth-century understandings of sexuality on nineteenth-century notions of friendship. It is also rumoured that Nietzsche frequented heterosexual brothels. Nigel Rodgers and Mel Thompson have argued that continuous sickness and headaches hindered Nietzsche from engaging much with women. Yet they offer other examples in which Nietzsche expressed his affections to women, including Wagner's wife Cosima Wagner.

Other scholars have argued that Köhler's sexuality-based interpretation is not helpful in understanding Nietzsche's philosophy. However, there are also those who stress that, if Nietzsche preferred men—with this preference constituting his psycho-sexual make-up—but could not admit his desires to himself, it meant he acted in conflict with his philosophy.

Philosophy

Main article: Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche

Because of Nietzsche's evocative style and provocative ideas, his philosophy generates passionate reactions. His works remain controversial, due to varying interpretations and misinterpretations. In Western philosophy, Nietzsche's writings have been described as a case of free revolutionary thought, that is, revolutionary in its structure and problems, although not tied to any revolutionary project. His writings have also been described as a revolutionary project in which his philosophy serves as the foundation of a European cultural rebirth.

Apollonian and Dionysian

Main article: Apollonian and Dionysian

The Apollonian and Dionysian is a two-fold philosophical concept based on two figures in ancient Greek mythology, Apollo and Dionysus. This relationship takes the form of a dialectic. Even though the concept is related to The Birth of Tragedy, the poet Hölderlin had already spoken of it, and Winckelmann had talked of Bacchus.

Nietzsche found in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that transcended the pessimism found in the so-called wisdom of Silenus. The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering depicted by characters on stage, passionately and joyously affirmed life, finding it worth living. The main theme in The Birth of Tragedy is that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian Kunsttriebe ("artistic impulses") forms dramatic arts or tragedies. He argued that this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians. Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity (hence the omission of the principle of individuation). Nietzsche used these two forces because, for him, the world of mind and order on one side, and passion and chaos on the other, formed principles that were fundamental to the Greek culture: the Apollonian a dreaming state, full of illusions; and Dionysian a state of intoxication, representing the liberations of instinct and dissolution of boundaries. In this mould, a man appears as the satyr. He is the horror of the annihilation of the principle of individuality and at the same time someone who delights in its destruction.

Apollonian and Dionysian juxtapositions appear in the interplay of tragedy: the tragic hero of the drama, the main protagonist, struggles to make (Apollonian) order of his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) fate, though he dies unfulfilled. Elaborating on the conception of Hamlet as an intellectual who cannot make up his mind, and is a living antithesis to the man of action, Nietzsche argues that a Dionysian figure possesses the knowledge that his actions cannot change the eternal balance of things, and it disgusts him enough not to act at all. Hamlet falls under this category—he glimpsed the supernatural reality through the Ghost; he has gained true knowledge and knows that no action of his has the power to change this. For the audience of such drama, this tragedy allows them to sense what Nietzsche called the Primordial Unity, which revives Dionysian nature. He describes primordial unity as the increase of strength, the experience of fullness and plenitude bestowed by frenzy. Frenzy acts as intoxication and is crucial for the physiological condition that enables the creation of any art. Stimulated by this state, a person's artistic will is enhanced:

In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever wills is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power—until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is—art.

Nietzsche is adamant that the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles represent the apex of artistic creation, the true realisation of tragedy; it is with Euripides, that tragedy begins its Untergang (literally 'going under' or 'downward-way;' meaning decline, deterioration, downfall, death, etc.). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' use of Socratic rationalism and morality in his tragedies, claiming that the infusion of ethics and reason robs tragedy of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the Dionysian and Apollonian. Socrates emphasised reason to such a degree that he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human knowledge. Plato continued along this path in his dialogues, and the modern world eventually inherited reason at the expense of artistic impulses found in the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy. He notes that without the Apollonian, the Dionysian lacks the form and structure to make a coherent piece of art, and without the Dionysian, the Apollonian lacks the necessary vitality and passion. Only the fertile interplay of these two forces brought together as an art represented the best of Greek tragedy.

An example of the impact of this idea can be seen in the book Patterns of Culture, where anthropologist Ruth Benedict acknowledges Nietzschean opposites of "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" as the stimulus for her thoughts about Native American cultures. Carl Jung has written extensively on the dichotomy in Psychological Types. Michel Foucault commented that his own book Madness and Civilization should be read "under the sun of the great Nietzschean inquiry". Here Foucault referenced Nietzsche's description of the birth and death of tragedy and his explanation that the subsequent tragedy of the Western world was the refusal of the tragic and, with that, refusal of the sacred. Painter Mark Rothko was influenced by Nietzsche's view of tragedy presented in The Birth of Tragedy.

Perspectivism

Main article: Perspectivism

Nietzsche claimed the death of God would eventually lead to the realisation that there can never be a universal perspective on things and that the traditional idea of objective truth is incoherent. Nietzsche rejected the idea of objective reality, arguing that knowledge is contingent and conditional, relative to various fluid perspectives or interests. This leads to constant reassessment of rules (i.e., those of philosophy, the scientific method, etc.) according to the circumstances of individual perspectives. This view has acquired the name perspectivism.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche proclaimed that a table of values hangs above every great person. He pointed out that what is common among different peoples is the act of esteeming, of creating values, even if the values are different from one person to the next. Nietzsche asserted that what made people great was not the content of their beliefs, but the act of valuing. Thus the values a community strives to articulate are not as important as the collective will to see those values come to pass. The willingness is more essential than the merit of the goal itself, according to Nietzsche. "A thousand goals have there been so far", says Zarathustra, "for there are a thousand peoples. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking: the one goal is lacking. Humanity still has no goal." Hence, the title of the aphorism, "On The Thousand And One Goal". The idea that one value-system is no more worthy than the next, although it may not be directly ascribed to Nietzsche, has become a common premise in modern social science. Max Weber and Martin Heidegger absorbed it and made it their own. It shaped their philosophical and cultural endeavours, as well as their political understanding. Weber, for example, relied on Nietzsche's perspectivism by maintaining that objectivity is still possible—but only after a particular perspective, value, or end has been established.

Among his critique of traditional philosophy of Kant, Descartes, and Plato in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche attacked the thing in itself and cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") as unfalsifiable beliefs based on naive acceptance of previous notions and fallacies. Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre put Nietzsche in a high place in the history of philosophy. While criticising nihilism and Nietzsche together as a sign of general decay, he still commended him for recognising psychological motives behind Kant and Hume's moral philosophy:

For it was Nietzsche's historic achievement to understand more clearly than any other philosopher ... not only that what purported to be appeals of objectivity were in fact expressions of subjective will, but also the nature of the problems that this posed for philosophy.

Slave revolt in morals

Main article: Master–slave morality

In Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche's genealogical account of the development of modern moral systems occupies a central place. For Nietzsche, a fundamental shift took place during the human history from thinking in terms of "good and bad" toward "good and evil".

The initial form of morality was set by a warrior aristocracy and other ruling castes of ancient civilisations. Aristocratic values of good and bad coincided with and reflected their relationship to lower castes such as slaves. Nietzsche presented this "master morality" as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece. To be "good" was to be happy and to have the things related to happiness: wealth, strength, health, power, etc. To be "bad" was to be like the slaves over whom the aristocracy ruled: poor, weak, sick, pathetic—objects of pity or disgust rather than hatred.

"Slave morality" developed as a reaction to master morality. Value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and submission; while evil is worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive. Nietzsche saw slave morality as pessimistic and fearful, its values emerging to improve the self-perception of slaves. He associated slave morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions, as it is born out of the ressentiment of slaves. Nietzsche argued that the idea of equality allowed slaves to overcome their own conditions without despising themselves. By denying the inherent inequality of people—in success, strength, beauty, and intelligence—slaves acquired a method of escape, namely by generating new values on the basis of rejecting master morality, which frustrated them. It was used to overcome the slave's sense of inferiority before their (better-off) masters. It does so by depicting slave weakness, for example, as a matter of choice, by relabelling it as "meekness". The "good man" of master morality is precisely the "evil man" of slave morality, while the "bad man" is recast as the "good man".

Nietzsche saw slave morality as a source of the nihilism that has overtaken Europe. Modern Europe and Christianity exist in a hypocritical state due to a tension between master and slave morality, both contradictory values determining, to varying degrees, the values of most Europeans (who are "motley"). Nietzsche called for exceptional people not to be ashamed in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which he deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. He cautioned, however, that morality, per se, is not bad; it is good for the masses and should be left to them. Exceptional people, in contrast, should follow their own "inner law". A favourite motto of Nietzsche, taken from Pindar, reads: "Become what you are."

A long-standing assumption about Nietzsche is that he preferred master over slave morality. However, eminent Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann rejected this interpretation, writing that Nietzsche's analyses of these two types of morality were used only in a descriptive and historic sense; they were not meant for any kind of acceptance or glorification. On the other hand, Nietzsche called master morality "a higher order of values, the noble ones, those that say Yes to life, those that guarantee the future". Just as "there is an order of rank between man and man", there is also an order of rank "between morality and morality". Nietzsche waged a philosophic war against the slave morality of Christianity in his "revaluation of all values" to bring about the victory of a new master morality that he called the "philosophy of the future" (Beyond Good and Evil is subtitled Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future).

In Daybreak, Nietzsche began his "Campaign against Morality". He called himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticised the prominent moral philosophies of his day: Christianity, Kantianism, and utilitarianism. Nietzsche's concept "God is dead" applies to the doctrines of Christendom, though not to all other faiths: he claimed that Buddhism is a successful religion that he complimented for fostering critical thought. Still, Nietzsche saw his philosophy as a counter-movement to nihilism through appreciation of art:

Art as the single superior counterforce against all will to negation of life, art as the anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, anti-Nihilist par excellence.

Nietzsche claimed that the Christian faith as practised was not a proper representation of Jesus' teachings, as it forced people merely to believe in the way of Jesus but not to act as Jesus did; in particular, his example of refusing to judge people, something that Christians constantly did. He condemned institutionalised Christianity for emphasising a morality of pity (Mitleid), which assumes an inherent illness in society:

Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength in which suffering as such inflicts on life is still further increased and multiplied by pity. Pity makes suffering contagious.

In Ecce Homo Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems based on a dichotomy of good and evil a "calamitous error", and wished to initiate a re-evaluation of the values of the Christian world. He indicated his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.

While Nietzsche attacked the principles of Judaism, he was not antisemitic: in his work On the Genealogy of Morality, he explicitly condemned antisemitism and pointed out that his attack on Judaism was not an attack on contemporary Jewish people but specifically an attack upon the ancient Jewish priesthood who he claimed antisemitic Christians paradoxically based their views upon. An Israeli historian who performed a statistical analysis of everything Nietzsche wrote about Jews claims that cross-references and context make clear that 85% of the negative comments are attacks on Christian doctrine or, sarcastically, on Richard Wagner.

Nietzsche felt that modern antisemitism was "despicable" and contrary to European ideals. Its cause, in his opinion, was the growth in European nationalism and the endemic "jealousy and hatred" of Jewish success. He wrote that Jews should be thanked for helping uphold a respect for the philosophies of ancient Greece, and for giving rise to "the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (Baruch Spinoza), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world".

Death of God and nihilism

Main articles: God is dead and Nihilism

The statement "God is dead," occurring in several of Nietzsche's works (notably in The Gay Science), has become one of his best-known remarks. On the basis of it, many commentators regard Nietzsche as an atheist; others (such as Kaufmann) suggest that this statement might reflect a more subtle understanding of divinity. Scientific developments and the increasing secularisation of Europe had effectively 'killed' the Abrahamic God, who had served as the basis for meaning and value in the West for more than a thousand years. The death of God may lead beyond bare perspectivism to outright nihilism, the belief that nothing has any inherent importance and that life lacks purpose. While Nietzsche rejected the traditional Christian morality and theology, he also rejected the nihilism which many thought was the only alternative to it.

Nietzsche believed that Christian moral doctrine was originally constructed to counteract nihilism. It provides people with traditional beliefs about the moral values of good and evil, belief in God (whose existence one might appeal to in justifying the evil in the world), and a framework with which one might claim to have objective knowledge. In constructing a world where objective knowledge is supposed to be possible, Christianity is an antidote to a primal form of nihilism—the despair of meaninglessness. As Heidegger put the problem, "If God as the supra sensory ground and goal of all reality is dead if the supra sensory world of the ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory and above it its vitalising and upbuilding power, then nothing more remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient himself."

One such reaction to the loss of meaning is what Nietzsche called passive nihilism, which he recognised in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's doctrine—which Nietzsche also referred to as Western Buddhism—advocates separating oneself from will and desires to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterised this ascetic attitude as a "will to nothingness". Life turns away from itself as there is nothing of value to be found in the world. This moving away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although, in this, the nihilist appears to be inconsistent; this "will to nothingness" is still a (disavowed) form of willing.

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

— Friedrich Nietzsche, KSA 12:9 , taken from The Will to Power, section 585, translated by Walter Kaufmann

Nietzsche approached the problem of nihilism as a deeply personal one, stating that this problem of the modern world had "become conscious" in him. Furthermore, he emphasised the danger of nihilism and the possibilities it offers, as seen in his statement that "I praise, I do not reproach, 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 a master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!" According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation on which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure. Heidegger interpreted the death of God with what he explained as the death of metaphysics. He concluded that metaphysics has reached its potential and that the ultimate fate and downfall of metaphysics was proclaimed with the statement "God is dead."

Scholars such as Nishitani and Parkes have aligned Nietzsche's religious thought with Buddhist thinkers, particularly those of the Mahayana tradition. Occasionally, Nietzsche has also been considered in relation to Catholic mystics such as Meister Eckhart. Milne has argued against such interpretations on the grounds that such thinkers from Western and Eastern religious traditions strongly emphasise the divestment of will and the loss of ego, while Nietzsche offers a robust defence of egoism. Milne argues that Nietzsche's religious thought is better understood in relation to his self-professed ancestors: "Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe". Milne plays particularly close attention to Nietzsche's relationship to Goethe, who has typically been neglected in research by academic philosophers. Milne shows that Goethe's views on the one and the many allow a reciprocal determinism between part and whole, meaning that a claimed identity between part and whole does not give the part value solely in terms of belonging to the whole. In essence, this allows for a unitive sense of the individual's relationship to the universe, while also fostering a sense of "self-esteem" which Nietzsche found lacking in mystics such as Eckhart.

With regard to Nietzsche's development of thought, it has been noted in research that although he dealt with "nihilistic" themes ("pessimism, with nirvana and with nothingness and non-being") from 1869 onwards, a conceptual use of nihilism first took place in handwritten notes in mid-1880. This period saw the publication of a then popular work that reconstructed so-called "Russian nihilism" on the basis of Russian newspaper reports (N. Karlowitsch: The Development of Nihilism. Berlin 1880), which is significant for Nietzsche's terminology .

Will to power

Main article: Will to power

A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical outlook is the "will to power" (der Wille zur Macht), which he maintained provides a basis for understanding human behaviour—more so than competing explanations, such as the ones based on pressure for adaptation or survival. As such, according to Nietzsche, the drive for conservation appears as the major motivator of human or animal behaviour only in exceptions, as the general condition of life is not one of a 'struggle for existence.' More often than not, self-conservation is a consequence of a creature's will to exert its strength on the outside world.

In presenting his theory of human behaviour, Nietzsche also addressed and attacked concepts from philosophies then popularly embraced, such as Schopenhauer's notion of an aimless will or that of utilitarianism. Utilitarians claim that what moves people is the desire to be happy and accumulate pleasure in their lives. But such a conception of happiness Nietzsche rejected as something limited to, and characteristic of, the bourgeois lifestyle of the English society, and instead put forth the idea that happiness is not an aim per se. It is a consequence of overcoming hurdles to one's actions and the fulfilment of the will.

Related to his theory of the will to power is his speculation, which he did not deem final, regarding the reality of the physical world, including inorganic matter—that, like man's affections and impulses, the material world is also set by the dynamics of a form of the will to power. At the core of his theory is a rejection of atomism—the idea that matter is composed of stable, indivisible units (atoms). Instead, he seemed to have accepted the conclusions of Ruđer Bošković, who explained the qualities of matter as a result of an interplay of forces. One study of Nietzsche defines his fully developed concept of the will to power as "the element from which derive both the quantitative difference of related forces and the quality that devolves into each force in this relation" revealing the will to power as "the principle of the synthesis of forces". Of such forces Nietzsche said they could perhaps be viewed as a primitive form of the will. Likewise, he rejected the view that the movement of bodies is ruled by inexorable laws of nature, positing instead that movement was governed by the power relations between bodies and forces.

Other scholars disagree that Nietzsche considered the material world to be a form of the will to power: Nietzsche thoroughly criticised metaphysics, and by including the will to power in the material world, he would simply be setting up a new metaphysics. Other than Aphorism 36 in Beyond Good and Evil, where he raised a question regarding will to power as being in the material world, they argue, it was only in his notes (unpublished by himself), where he wrote about a metaphysical will to power. And they also claim that Nietzsche directed his landlord to burn those notes in 1888 when he left Sils Maria. According to these scholars, the "burning" story supports their thesis that Nietzsche rejected his project on the will to power at the end of his lucid life. However, a recent study (Huang 2019) shows that although it is true that in 1888 Nietzsche wanted some of his notes burned, this indicates little about his project on the will to power, not only because only 11 "aphorisms" saved from the flames were ultimately incorporated into The Will to Power (this book contains 1067 "aphorisms"), but also because these abandoned notes mainly focus on topics such as the critique of morality while touching upon the "feeling of power" only once.

Eternal return

Main article: Eternal return

"Eternal return" (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a hypothetical concept that posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, for an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. It is a purely physical concept, involving no supernatural reincarnation, but the return of beings in the same bodies. Nietzsche first proposed the idea of eternal return in a parable in Section 341 of The Gay Science, and also in the chapter "Of the Vision and the Riddle" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, among other places. Nietzsche considered it as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and said that its burden is the "heaviest weight" imaginable (" das schwerste Gewicht"). The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life, a reaction to Schopenhauer's praise of denying the will-to-live. To comprehend eternal recurrence, and to not only come to peace with it but to embrace it, requires amor fati, "love of fate". As Heidegger pointed out in his lectures on Nietzsche, Nietzsche's first mention of eternal recurrence presents this concept as a hypothetical question rather than stating it as fact. According to Heidegger, it is the burden imposed by the question of eternal recurrence – the mere possibility of it, and the reality of speculating on that possibility – which is so significant in modern thought: "The way Nietzsche here patterns the first communication of the thought of the 'greatest burden' makes it clear that this 'thought of thoughts' is at the same time 'the most burdensome thought.'"

Alexander Nehamas writes in Nietzsche: Life as Literature of three ways of seeing the eternal recurrence:

  1. "My life will recur in exactly identical fashion:" this expresses a totally fatalistic approach to the idea;
  2. "My life may recur in exactly identical fashion:" This second view conditionally asserts cosmology, but fails to capture what Nietzsche refers to in The Gay Science, p. 341; and finally,
  3. "If my life were to recur, then it could recur only in identical fashion." Nehamas shows that this interpretation exists totally independently of physics and does not presuppose the truth of cosmology.

Nehamas concluded that, if individuals constitute themselves through their actions, they can only maintain themselves in their current state by living in a recurrence of past actions. Nietzsche's thought is the negation of the idea of a history of salvation.

Übermensch

Main article: Übermensch

Another concept important to understanding Nietzsche is the Übermensch (Superman). Writing about nihilism in Also Sprach Zarathustra, Nietzsche introduced an Übermensch. According to Laurence Lampert, "the death of God must be followed by a long twilight of piety and nihilism (II. 19; III. 8). Zarathustra's gift of the overman is given to mankind not aware of the problem to which the overman is the solution." Zarathustra presents the Übermensch as the creator of new values, and he appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and nihilism. The Übermensch does not follow the morality of common people since that favours mediocrity but rises above the notion of good and evil and above the "herd". In this way Zarathustra proclaims his ultimate goal as the journey towards the state of the Übermensch. He wants a kind of spiritual evolution of self-awareness and overcoming of traditional views on morality and justice that stem from the superstitious beliefs still deeply rooted or related to the notion of God and Christianity.

From Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Zarathustra's Prologue; pp. 9–11):

I teach you the Übermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just the same shall man be to the Übermensch: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any ape. Even the wisest among you is only a conflict and hybrid of plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants? Behold, I teach you the Übermensch! The Übermensch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth... Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Übermensch—a rope over an abyss... What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a going under.

Zarathustra contrasts the Übermensch with the last man of egalitarian modernity (the most obvious example being democracy), an alternative goal humanity might set for itself. The last man is possible only by mankind's having bred an apathetic creature who has no great passion or commitment, who is unable to dream, who merely earns his living and keeps warm. This concept appears only in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and is presented as a condition that would render the creation of the Übermensch impossible.

Some have suggested that the eternal return is related to the Übermensch, since willing the eternal return of the same is a necessary step if the Übermensch is to create new values untainted by the spirit of gravity or asceticism. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval, yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. It could seem that the Übermensch, in being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Willing the eternal recurrence is presented as accepting the existence of the low while still recognising it as the low, and thus as overcoming the spirit of gravity or asceticism. One must have the strength of the Übermensch to will the eternal recurrence. Only the Übermensch will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made.

The Nazis attempted to incorporate the concept into their ideology by means of taking Nietzsche's figurative form of speech and creating a literal superiority over other ethnicities. After his death, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche became the curator and editor of her brother's manuscripts. She reworked Nietzsche's unpublished writings to fit her own German nationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism; 20th-century scholars contested this interpretation of his work and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available.

Although Nietzsche has been misrepresented as a predecessor to Nazism, he criticised antisemitism, pan-Germanism and, to a lesser extent, nationalism. Thus, he broke with his editor in 1886 because of his opposition to his editor's antisemitic stances, and his rupture with Richard Wagner, expressed in The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche contra Wagner, both of which he wrote in 1888, had much to do with Wagner's endorsement of pan-Germanism and antisemitism—and also of his rallying to Christianity. In a 29 March 1887 letter to Theodor Fritsch, Nietzsche mocked antisemites, Fritsch, Eugen Dühring, Wagner, Ebrard, Wahrmund, and the leading advocate of pan-Germanism, Paul de Lagarde, who would become, along with Wagner and Houston Chamberlain, the main official influences of Nazism. This 1887 letter to Fritsch ended by: "And finally, how do you think I feel when the name Zarathustra is mouthed by anti-Semites?" In contrast to these examples, Nietzsche's close friend Franz Overbeck recalled in his memoirs, "When he speaks frankly, the opinions he expresses about Jews go, in their severity, beyond any anti-Semitism. The foundation of his anti-Christianity is essentially anti-Semitic."

Critique of mass culture

Friedrich Nietzsche held a pessimistic view of modern society and culture. He believed that the press and mass culture led to conformity and brought about mediocrity, and that the lack of intellectual progress was leading to the decline of the human species. In his opinion, some people would be able to become superior individuals through the use of willpower. By rising above mass culture, those persons would produce higher, brighter, and healthier human beings.

Reading and influence

See also: Library of Friedrich Nietzsche
The residence of Nietzsche's last three years along with archive in Weimar, Germany, which holds many of Nietzsche's papers

A trained philologist, Nietzsche had a thorough knowledge of Greek philosophy. He read Kant, Plato, Mill, Schopenhauer and Spir, who became the main opponents in his philosophy, and later engaged, via the work of Kuno Fischer in particular, with the thought of Baruch Spinoza, whom he saw as his "precursor" in many respects but as a personification of the "ascetic ideal" in others. However, Nietzsche referred to Kant as a "moral fanatic", Plato as "boring", Mill as a "blockhead", and of Spinoza, he asked: "How much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray?" He likewise expressed contempt for British author George Eliot.

Nietzsche's philosophy, while innovative and revolutionary, was indebted to many predecessors. While at Basel, Nietzsche lectured on pre-Platonic philosophers for several years, and the text of this lecture series has been characterised as a "lost link" in the development of his thought. "In it, concepts such as the will to power, the eternal return of the same, the overman, gay science, self-overcoming and so on receive rough, unnamed formulations and are linked to specific pre-Platonic, especially Heraclitus, who emerges as a pre-Platonic Nietzsche." The pre-Socratic thinker Heraclitus was known for rejecting the concept of being as a constant and eternal principle of the universe and embracing "flux" and incessant change. His symbolism of the world as "child play" marked by amoral spontaneity and lack of definite rules was appreciated by Nietzsche. Due to his Heraclitean sympathies, Nietzsche was also a vociferous critic of Parmenides, who, in contrast to Heraclitus, viewed the world as a single, unchanging Being.

In his Egotism in German Philosophy, George Santayana claimed that Nietzsche's whole philosophy was a reaction to Schopenhauer. Santayana wrote that Nietzsche's work was "an emendation of that of Schopenhauer. The will to live would become the will to dominate; pessimism founded on reflection would become optimism founded on courage; the suspense of the will in contemplation would yield to a more biological account of intelligence and taste; finally in the place of pity and asceticism (Schopenhauer's two principles of morals) Nietzsche would set up the duty of asserting the will at all costs and being cruelly but beautifully strong. These points of difference from Schopenhauer cover the whole philosophy of Nietzsche."

The superficial similarity of Nietzsche's Übermensch to Thomas Carlyle's Hero as well as both authors' rhetorical prose style has led to speculation concerning the degree to which Nietzsche might have been influenced by his reading of Carlyle. G. K. Chesterton believed that "Out of flows most of the philosophy of Nietzsche", qualifying his statement by adding that they were "profoundly different" in character. Ruth apRoberts has shown that Carlyle anticipated Nietzsche in asserting the importance of metaphor (with Nietzsche's metaphor-fiction theory "appear to owe something to Carlyle"), announcing the death of God, and recognising both Goethe's Entsagen (renunciation) and Novalis's Selbsttödtung (self-annihilation) as prerequisites for engaging in philosophy. apRoberts writes that "Nietzsche and Carlyle had the same German sources, but Nietzsche may owe more to Carlyle than he cares to admit", noting that " takes the trouble to repudiate Carlyle with malicious emphasis." Ralph Jessop, senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow, has recently argued that a reassessment of Carlyle's influence on Nietzsche is "long-overdue".

Nietzsche expressed admiration for 17th-century French moralists such as La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère and Vauvenargues, as well as for Stendhal. The organicism of Paul Bourget influenced Nietzsche, as did that of Rudolf Virchow and Alfred Espinas. In 1867 Nietzsche wrote in a letter that he was trying to improve his German style of writing with the help of Lessing, Lichtenberg and Schopenhauer. It was probably Lichtenberg (along with Paul Rée) whose aphoristic style of writing contributed to Nietzsche's own use of aphorism. Nietzsche early learned of Darwinism through Friedrich Albert Lange. The essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson had a profound influence on Nietzsche, who "loved Emerson from first to last", wrote "Never have I felt so much at home in a book", and called him " author who has been richest in ideas in this century so far". Hippolyte Taine influenced Nietzsche's view on Rousseau and Napoleon. Notably, he also read some of the posthumous works of Charles Baudelaire, Tolstoy's My Religion, Ernest Renan's Life of Jesus, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Demons. Nietzsche called Dostoyevsky "the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn". While Nietzsche never mentions Max Stirner, the similarities in their ideas have prompted a minority of interpreters to suggest a relationship between the two.

In 1861, Nietzsche wrote an enthusiastic essay on his "favorite poet," Friedrich Hölderlin, mostly forgotten at that time. He also expressed deep appreciation for Stifter's Indian Summer, Byron's Manfred and Twain's Tom Sawyer.

A Louis Jacolliot translation of the Calcutta version of the ancient Hindu text called the Manusmriti was reviewed by Friedrich Nietzsche. He commented on it both favourably and unfavorably:

  • He deemed it "an incomparably spiritual and superior work" to the Christian Bible, observed that "the sun shines on the whole book" and attributed its ethical perspective to "the noble classes, the philosophers and warriors, stand above the mass". Nietzsche does not advocate a caste system, states David Conway, but endorses the political exclusion conveyed in the Manu text. Nietzsche considered Manu's social order as far from perfect, but considers the general idea of a caste system to be natural and right, and stated that "caste-order, order of rank is just a formula for the supreme law of life itself", a "natural order, lawfulness par excellence". According to Nietzsche, states Julian Young, "Nature, not Manu, separates from each other: predominantly spiritual people, people characterized by muscular and temperamental strength, and a third group of people who are not distinguished in either way, the average". He wrote that "To prepare a book of law in the style of Manu means to give a people the right to become master one day, to become perfect, – to aspire to the highest art of life."
  • The Law of Manu was also criticised by Nietzsche. Nietzsche writes, "these regulations teach us enough, in them we find for once Aryan humanity, quite pure, quite primordial, we learn that the concept of pure blood is the opposite of a harmless concept."

Reception and legacy

Main article: Influence and reception of Friedrich Nietzsche
Portrait of Nietzsche by Edvard Munch, 1906, at the Thiel Gallery, Stockholm
Another sketch by Edvard Munch

Nietzsche's works did not reach a wide readership during his active writing career. However, in 1888 the influential Danish critic Georg Brandes aroused considerable excitement about Nietzsche through a series of lectures he gave at the University of Copenhagen. In the years after Nietzsche's death in 1900, his works became better known, and readers have responded to them in complex and sometimes controversial ways. Many Germans eventually discovered his appeals for greater individualism and personality development in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but responded to them divergently. He had some following among left-wing Germans in the 1890s; in 1894–1895 German conservatives wanted to ban his work as subversive. During the late 19th century Nietzsche's ideas were commonly associated with anarchist movements and appear to have had influence within them, particularly in France, Germany, Great Britain and the United States. Gustav Landauer is credited with the most in-depth appreciation and critique of Nietzsche's ideas from an anarchist perspective. H.L. Mencken produced the first book on Nietzsche in English in 1907, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, and in 1910 a book of translated paragraphs from Nietzsche, increasing knowledge of his philosophy in the United States. Nietzsche is known today as a precursor to existentialism, post-structuralism and postmodernism.

W. B. Yeats and Arthur Symons described Nietzsche as the intellectual heir to William Blake. Symons went on to compare the ideas of the two thinkers in The Symbolist Movement in Literature, while Yeats tried to raise awareness of Nietzsche in Ireland. A similar notion was espoused by W. H. Auden who wrote of Nietzsche in his New Year Letter (released in 1941 in The Double Man): "O masterly debunker of our liberal fallacies ... all your life you stormed, like your English forerunner Blake." Nietzsche made an impact on composers during the 1890s. Writer Donald Mitchell noted that Gustav Mahler was "attracted to the poetic fire of Zarathustra, but repelled by the intellectual core of its writings". He also quoted Mahler himself, and adds that he was influenced by Nietzsche's conception and affirmative approach to nature, which Mahler presented in his Third Symphony using Zarathustra's roundelay. Frederick Delius produced a piece of choral music, A Mass of Life, based on a text of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, while Richard Strauss (who also based his Also sprach Zarathustra on the same book), was only interested in finishing "another chapter of symphonic autobiography". Writers and poets influenced by Nietzsche include André Gide, August Strindberg, Robinson Jeffers, Pío Baroja, D.H. Lawrence, Edith Södergran and Yukio Mishima.

Nietzsche was an early influence on the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. Knut Hamsun counted Nietzsche, along with Strindberg and Dostoyevsky, as his primary influences. Author Jack London wrote that he was more stimulated by Nietzsche than by any other writer. Critics have suggested that the character of David Grief in A Son of the Sun was based on Nietzsche. Nietzsche's influence on Muhammad Iqbal is most evidenced in Asrar-i-Khudi (The Secrets of the Self). Wallace Stevens was another reader of Nietzsche, and elements of Nietzsche's philosophy were found throughout Stevens's poetry collection Harmonium. Olaf Stapledon was influenced by the idea of the Übermensch and it is a central theme in his books Odd John and Sirius. In Russia, Nietzsche influenced Russian symbolism and figures such as Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Andrei Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov and Alexander Scriabin incorporated or discussed parts of Nietzsche philosophy in their works. Thomas Mann's novel Death in Venice shows a use of Apollonian and Dionysian, and in Doctor Faustus Nietzsche was a central source for the character of Adrian Leverkühn. Hermann Hesse, similarly, in his Narcissus and Goldmund presents two main characters as opposite yet intertwined Apollonian and Dionysian spirits. Painter Giovanni Segantini was fascinated by Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and he drew an illustration for the first Italian translation of the book. The Russian painter Lena Hades created the oil painting cycle Also Sprach Zarathustra dedicated to the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

By World War I, Nietzsche had acquired a reputation as an inspiration for right-wing German militarism and leftist politics. German soldiers received copies of Thus Spoke Zarathustra as gifts during World War I. The Dreyfus affair provided a contrasting example of his reception: the French antisemitic Right labelled the Jewish and leftist intellectuals who defended Alfred Dreyfus as "Nietzscheans". Nietzsche had a distinct appeal for many Zionist thinkers around the start of the 20th century, most notable being Ahad Ha'am, Hillel Zeitlin, Micha Josef Berdyczewski, A.D. Gordon and Martin Buber, who went so far as to extoll Nietzsche as a "creator" and "emissary of life". Chaim Weizmann was a great admirer of Nietzsche; the first president of Israel sent Nietzsche's books to his wife, adding a comment in a letter that "This was the best and finest thing I can send to you." Israel Eldad, the ideological chief of the Stern Gang that fought the British in Palestine in the 1940s, wrote about Nietzsche in his underground newspaper and later translated most of Nietzsche's books into Hebrew. Eugene O'Neill remarked that Zarathustra influenced him more than any other book he ever read. He also shared Nietzsche's view of tragedy. The plays The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed are examples of Nietzsche's influence on him. The First International claimed Nietzsche as ideologically one of their own. From 1888 through the 1890s there were more publications of Nietzsche works in Russia than in any other country. Nietzsche was influential among the Bolsheviks. Among the Nietzschean Bolsheviks were Vladimir Bazarov, Anatoly Lunacharsky and Aleksandr Bogdanov. Nietzsche's influence on the works of Frankfurt School philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno can be seen in the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Adorno summed up Nietzsche's philosophy as expressing the "humane in a world in which humanity has become a sham".

Nietzsche's growing prominence suffered a severe setback when his works became closely associated with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Many political leaders of the twentieth century were at least superficially familiar with Nietzsche's ideas, although it is not always possible to determine whether they actually read his work. It is debated among scholars whether Hitler read Nietzsche, although if he did, it may not have been extensively. He was a frequent visitor to the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and used expressions of Nietzsche's, such as "lords of the earth" in Mein Kampf. The Nazis made selective use of Nietzsche's philosophy. Alfred Baeumler was perhaps the most notable exponent of Nietzschean thought in Nazi Germany. Baeumler had published his book "Nietzsche, Philosopher and Politician" in 1931, before the Nazis' rise to power, and subsequently published several editions of Nietzsche's work during the Third Reich. Mussolini, Charles de Gaulle and Huey P. Newton read Nietzsche. Richard Nixon read Nietzsche with "curious interest", and his book Beyond Peace might have taken its title from Nietzsche's book Beyond Good and Evil which Nixon read beforehand. Bertrand Russell wrote that Nietzsche had exerted great influence on philosophers and on people of literary and artistic culture, but warned that the attempt to put Nietzsche's philosophy of aristocracy into practice could only be done by an organisation similar to the Fascist or the Nazi party.

A decade after World War II, there was a revival of Nietzsche's philosophical writings thanks to translations and analyses by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. Georges Bataille was also influential in this revival, defending Nietzsche against appropriation by the Nazis with his notable 1937 essay "Nietzsche and Fascists". Others, well known philosophers in their own right, wrote commentaries on Nietzsche's philosophy, including Martin Heidegger, who produced a four-volume study, and Lev Shestov, who wrote a book called Dostoyevski, Tolstoy and Nietzsche where he portrays Nietzsche and Dostoyevski as the "thinkers of tragedy". Georg Simmel compares Nietzsche's importance to ethics to that of Copernicus for cosmology. Sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies read Nietzsche avidly from his early life, and later frequently discussed many of his concepts in his own works. Nietzsche has influenced philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Oswald Spengler, George Grant, Emil Cioran, Albert Camus, Ayn Rand, Jacques Derrida, Sarah Kofman, Leo Strauss, Max Scheler, Michel Foucault, Bernard Williams, and Nick Land.

Camus described Nietzsche as "the only artist to have derived the extreme consequences of an aesthetics of the absurd". Paul Ricœur called Nietzsche one of the masters of the "school of suspicion", alongside Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Carl Jung was also influenced by Nietzsche. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, a biography transcribed by his secretary, he cites Nietzsche as a large influence. Aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, especially his ideas of the self and his relation to society, run through much of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century thought. Nietzsche's writings have also been influential to some advancers of Accelerationist thought through his influence on Deleuze and Guattari. His deepening of the romantic-heroic tradition of the nineteenth century, for example, as expressed in the ideal of the "grand striver" appears in the work of thinkers from Cornelius Castoriadis to Roberto Mangabeira Unger. For Nietzsche, this grand striver overcomes obstacles, engages in epic struggles, pursues new goals, embraces recurrent novelty, and transcends existing structures and contexts.

Works

Main article: Friedrich Nietzsche bibliography See also: List of works about Friedrich Nietzsche
The Nietzsche Stone, near Surlej, the inspiration for Thus Spoke Zarathustra

See also

References

Notes

  1. See, for example:
    • "Some interpreters of Nietzsche believe he embraced nihilism, rejected philosophical reasoning, and promoted a literary exploration of the human condition, while not being concerned with gaining truth and knowledge in the traditional sense of those terms. However, other interpreters of Nietzsche say that in attempting to counteract the predicted rise of nihilism, he was engaged in a positive program to reaffirm life, and so he called for a radical, naturalistic rethinking of the nature of human existence, knowledge, and morality."
    • "Nietzsche's increasing determination, however, in his later writings, to avoid philosophical nihilisms of every variety, leads him to wonder whether it might not be possible to achieve an understanding of what fuels the foregoing dialectic of a sort that would allow one to head in an altogether different philosophical direction."
  2. /ˈniːtʃə, ˈniːtʃi/ NEE-chə, NEE-chee; German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtʃə] or [ˈniːtsʃə];
  3. Between 1868 and 1870, he published two other studies on Diogenes Laertius: On the Sources of Diogenes Laertius (De Fontibus Diogenis Laertii) Part I (1868) & Part II (1869); and Analecta Laertiana (1870). See Jensen & Heit 2014, p. 115
  4. This is how R. B. Pippin describes Nietzsche's views in The Persistence of Subjectivity (2005), p. 326.
  5. Nietzsche comments in many notes about the matter being a hypothesis drawn from the metaphysics of substance. Whitlock, G. (1996). "Roger Boscovich, Benedict de Spinoza and Friedrich Nietzsche: The Untold Story". Nietzsche-Studien. 25: 207. doi:10.1515/9783110244441.200 (inactive 3 December 2024). S2CID 171148597.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of December 2024 (link)
  6. Trevor-Roper, Hugh. 2008. "Introductory essay for 'Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944 Secret Conversations'." In The Mind of Adolf Hitler. Enigma Books. p. xxxvii: "We know, from his secretary, that he could quote Schopenhauer by the page, and the other German philosopher of willpower, Nietzsche, whose works he afterward presented to Mussolini, was often on his lips."
  7. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: Hubris 1889–1936. W. W. Norton. p. 240. 'Landsberg,' Hitler told Hans Frank, was his 'university paid for by the state.' He read, he said, everything he could get hold of: Nietzsche, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Ranke, Treitschke, Marx, Bismarck's Thoughts and Memories, and the war memoirs of German and allied generals and statesmen.... But Hitler's reading and reflection collection were anything but academic, doubtless, he did read much. However, as was noted in an earlier chapter, he made clear in My Struggle that reading for him had purely an instrumental purpose. He read not for knowledge or enlightenment, but for confirmation of his own preconceptions.

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