Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Key Concepts Explained
Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Key Concepts
Nihilism
Nihilism is the negation of all belief; it is, in principle, a philosophical attitude towards life, expressing the hopelessness of being devoid of meaning and without reference. It is the negation of existence. For Nietzsche, it is, first and foremost, every culture that denies the values of life, as is the case with Western culture. This nihilistic attitude may be active or passive.
- Passive nihilism is what happens to humans after the death of God; without God, there are no absolute guarantees. Humans, after killing God, feel lost.
- Active nihilism assumes that God is dead. It does not surrender to despair and suicide and is required for the appearance of a new culture and the appearance of a new human: the superman.
Dionysian
Dionysus is the god of wine and crops. He is contrary to Apollo and the orderly world representing the values of reason. Nietzsche explains how Western philosophy (because of Socrates and Plato) has neglected the Dionysian dimension, highlighting the values of reason as human beings themselves, and leaving aside the irrational. Dionysian represents everything Nietzsche claims as forgotten in our culture, philosophy, religion, and morality: the feast, the senses, music, dance, pleasure, etc. Nietzsche does not deny that human beings are rational, but they are also instinctive, creative, special, etc. Therefore, he calls for a mixture of both to get to enjoy life.
Unnatural Morality
Unnatural morality is characteristic of the weak and resentful against life, of those who affirm the reality of a higher world in which we must sacrifice in this life. Unnatural morality arises in opposition to natural morality, which is that of the strong, which is based on the will to power and the assessed value of this life, the earth. Unnatural morality is a morality of slaves, and the origin of this morality is Socrates.
Nietzsche harshly criticizes this and says that man is instinctive and must have a sound moral, away from a way of life downstream. A natural morality that affirms the existence of this life only leads to living fully and intensely. Natural morality is the morality of the superman.
Apparent World
Nietzsche uses this concept to refer to the division of reality into two worlds settled by metaphysics and religion: a “real world,” superior, which is achieved through reason (the real world according to Plato), and the underworld, which is the apparent world, the senses, changing, death (the world of sense according to Plato). Nietzsche invests in this division and considers the real world what until now has been considered the apparent world. The apparent world is the only world we have, and denying it is typical of the weak. God’s death is the death of the “real world,” to retrieve the only world we have. We must accept this world and love it as it is, without denying it or inventing perfect worlds to comfort our sorrows.
Innocence of Becoming
According to Nietzsche, the legacy of philosophy has always felt rejection of evolution, the changing and flowing character of things, pursuing the ideal of a higher reality which had characteristics contrary to the definitive characteristics of this changing world in which we live. For these philosophers, the flowing nature of reality has been trying; for them, the true should really be immutable, eternal, universal. Nietzsche affirms that becoming is the only existence, but of an existence without any regularity. The innocence of becoming is the understanding of reality, and ourselves within it, without order. Becoming is meaningless; it is flowing and changing. It means accepting that the world is as it is and not as reason would like it to be. The innocence of becoming is to accept the changes.