Friedrich Nietzsche: Life, Works, and Philosophy
Friedrich Nietzsche: Life and Key Philosophical Periods
Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Prussia in 1844. His father was of Polish descent, and his mother was German. He studied at Pforta school, where he began to experience headaches. In 1864, he began studying classical philology. He met Richard Wagner in 1868, with whom he struck up a friendship. In 1872, he published The Birth of Tragedy. In 1878, he broke with Wagner, believing his music numbed the senses. At thirty-five, he began to travel in Europe, continually tormented by headaches and vomiting. In 1881, he published Thus Spoke Zarathustra. After suffering a collapse in Turin, he was admitted to a psychiatric clinic. He lost all reason and was left in the care of his mother and sister. He died in 1900.
Periods of Nietzsche’s Philosophy
1. Romantic Period: Philosophy of the Night
Nietzsche draws on the pre-Socratics, particularly Heraclitus, Schopenhauer, and the music of Wagner. The key work is The Birth of Tragedy, dedicated to Wagner because his operas are seen as the continuation of Greek tragedy. During this period, he develops a continuous theme: the contrast between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, giving priority to the latter. Socrates appears as the great enemy.
2. Illustrated Period: Philosophy of the Morning
This period matches the first years of his travels. There is a break with the previous stage; he breaks with Wagner and abandons Schopenhauer’s philosophy. He draws on Voltaire and the French Enlightenment and takes a positivist approach to metaphysics, religion, and art. The central figure is a free man. This period includes his work Human, All Too Human, which denounces all the ideals of Western culture.
3. The Message of Zarathustra: Noon Philosophy
Nietzsche reaches his maximum height. He wrote his seminal work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The central idea of the work is the eternal return, and Zarathustra represents the concept of Dionysus, and personalization will be the Superman. Zarathustra is a prophet who comes to announce the death of God and represents the concept of Dionysus and the Superman.
4. Critical Period: Sunset Philosophy
He attacks Western culture’s philosophy, religion, and traditional morality. This ties in with the second period but is much more violent and passionate. It is a stage not of affirmation but of negation and criticism (of nihilism). The figure now is the philosopher with a hammer, who curses the “last man” (who precedes the Superman). Works from this period include Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, and Ecce Homo, his philosophical autobiography.
Nietzsche’s Critique of Western Philosophy
Western philosophy has been corrupted since Socrates and Plato. Socrates succeeded in imposing reason against life, Apollo over Dionysus. Plato, by devaluing this world, created another, a pure invention of the spirit. For Nietzsche, the philosopher reveals an instinct, an unspoken fear or desire, not impersonal truth. The spirit of decadence, the hatred of life and the world, and the fear instinct are evident. Nietzsche only seems to save Heraclitus.
He attacks major metaphysical concepts, such as grammar or language deception. The worst of them is the concept of being, an empty fiction. He also rejects the concepts of self, thing in itself, substance, cause, etc. All these concepts come from a rejection of the value of the senses and an overestimation of reason. In contrast, Nietzsche says that we must accept the testimony of the senses: the real is becoming, the phenomenon or appearance. In short, the supreme error of metaphysics is to have admitted a real world when only seeming is real.
Nietzsche modifies the concept of truth. His thinking is not only phenomenal but also admits truth itself. A truth is true for its pragmatic value; the will to truth is but the will to power: the fact that increases power, which serves life. Against metaphysical dogmatism, he defends perspectivism: there are no facts but interpretations, there is nothing in itself, but perspective. The question is, what is this for me? And the prospect is already a review.