Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Influences and Key Concepts
Nietzsche: Context and Philosophical Background
The first half of the 19th century was a time of optimism, intellectual idealism, Marxism, and positivism. These movements, all heirs of Enlightenment reason, made the progress of mankind their flag. In the second half of the century, to which Nietzsche belongs, we see a gradual erosion of these ideas, which had previously served to shape the world. A reaction emerged, and perhaps Nietzsche most robustly conducted a review of all aspects of culture.
Key Influences on Nietzsche’s Thought
The philosophical influences on Nietzsche’s thinking can be easily recognized, as he himself acknowledges them in his work. These include:
- Heraclitus and much of pre-Socratic philosophy
- Schopenhauer’s thought, particularly in Nietzsche’s early works
- The materialism of F.A. Lange
Nietzsche’s primary theoretical adversaries, whose ideas are crucial to understanding his philosophy, include:
- Socrates
- Plato
- Christianity
- Kant
- Positivism
Heraclitus and the Nature of Reality
Heraclitus conceived of nature as a continuous process of birth and death, characterized by discord, strife, and confrontation between opposing forces that give rise to all things. Nietzsche rescued this original conception of reality from oblivion. He challenged the metaphysics of Plato, who had privileged order, calm, and reason, granting the status of true being to a world of eternal archetypes or ideas located in the hereafter and accessible only to the intellect. According to Nietzsche, the great error of all Western philosophy rests on this misinterpretation of reality, which originated with Plato but was later adopted by Christian philosophy and Kant’s Enlightenment. This error, in essence, is a rejection of the world as it truly is: an irrational force with no inherent meaning, nothing more than a will to live.
Romantic Idealism and Schopenhauer’s Influence
German Romantic idealism of the 19th century had already attempted to overcome the cold academicism of Enlightenment reason, criticizing its overvaluation as the sole source of knowledge. Instead, it extolled the natural, feeling, and life as genuine expressions of the totality of reality. Nietzsche incorporated these new values into his philosophy but was also influenced by the anti-Hegelian reaction initiated by Schopenhauer. Hegel had sought to overcome the Kantian distinction between subject and nature, transforming all of reality into a subject, spirit, or universal reason that manifests itself in nature. In contrast to Hegel’s universal reason, Schopenhauer proposed the universal will, the life instinct, as the original reality. Life, with all its complexity, is also the center of Nietzsche’s philosophical inquiry.
F.A. Lange and the Limits of Empirical Knowledge
The influence of neo-Kantian F.A. Lange, whose book A History of Materialism and Criticism of Its Importance in the Present earned Nietzsche’s praise, is also noteworthy. In it, Lange developed Kant’s skepticism about empirical knowledge of the world (our senses do not show us the world as it is in itself). If our experience of the world does not teach us the world as it truly is, the logical consequence for Nietzsche was to seek other ways of interpreting reality, such as art or metaphor.
Nietzsche’s Critique of Positivism
Finally, Nietzsche also confronted positivism, a movement of his era that believed in “order” and “progress” and preached a new faith and total confidence in natural science and quantitative methods.