Nietzsche’s Key Concepts: A Philosophical Glossary
Nietzsche’s Key Concepts
A Philosophical Glossary
Philosophers
A term used pejoratively by Nietzsche to describe a tradition originating with Parmenides, developing through Plato, and continuing to his own time. Nietzsche believed the “real world” originated from a vital inability.
Grammar
Nietzsche uses this term to refer to the rules and principles governing language. All grammars begin by attributing an action to an agent, implying a voluntary “I.” This relies on causality, creating concepts like “substance.” Grammar suggests every action has a subject, hindering our perception of reality as a process. This leads to a belief in God.
Idiosyncrasy
The distinct characteristics of an individual or group.
Idolatry
Excessive, passionate love for a person or thing. Nietzsche labels philosophical concepts “idolatrous” due to the exaggerated passion they inspire.
Moral-Optical Illusion
A term coined by Nietzsche, referring to a hallucination with moral origins.
Language
Originating from the need to express personal experience, language is inherently metaphorical. It doesn’t objectively reproduce reality. Metaphors become boundaries, creating concepts like truth as a correspondence between reality and thought. This “true concept” diminishes experiences through uniformity, denying differences. Language significantly influences human thought, making it crucial to abandon faith in grammar.
Metaphysics
For Nietzsche, the core of Western tradition: inventing a “real world” against an “apparent world.” This stems from a fear of becoming and death. Metaphysical categories impose order and peace absent in the sensory world.
Monotone-Theism
Nietzsche’s play on words. Traditional metaphysics is a “monotheism of truth,” believing in a single, exclusive truth in a separate world, devaluing the real world. Nietzsche champions a “politics of truth” against this.
Prejudice of Reason
“Reason” plays a harmful role in language, developing concepts that alter reality. Like Kant, Nietzsche argues “reason” tends towards the unconditional and universal. The misconception is that this corresponds to something real. “Reason” constructs a static reality, distorting sensory evidence of continuous change. Nietzsche rejects the idea of fossilized becoming, hence the quotation marks. The Übermensch metaphor represents someone reconciling reason with vital intensity.
Being
Refers to a permanent, singular, stable reality. Nietzsche considers it a “blank fiction” betraying the mutable nature of existence. There is no being, only becoming.
Surreptitious
Something hidden and secret.
Substance
A key word in traditional metaphysics. A reality underlying qualities or accidents, allowing change while the substance remains static.
Verification
Confirming the truth of something.
Truth
Traditionally, objective knowledge of reality. Nietzsche opposes this “will to truth.” The willingness to reality isn’t rational; reason can’t be a tool for learning “monotheistic truth.” Truth is relative, inseparable from subjectivity. For Nietzsche, truth is a fiction forgetting its fictional nature. His “politics of truth” advocates for the right to invent one’s truth against imposed interpretations.
Life
Nietzsche’s fundamental valuation criterion. All values are invented; those affirming life are acceptable. Western culture’s values often contradict life.
Will
The power causing actions. A fiction. Kant argued its existence couldn’t be proven theoretically but was necessary for morality. Nietzsche’s morality isn’t universal but a product of life-denying values.
Me
The substantial unity behind a subject’s identity. A fiction caused by language. For Nietzsche, the “me” is a field of forces in tension, resulting in a dominant instinct we call “will.” These forces are heterogeneous, some active, some reactive.