Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Nihilism, Eternal Return & Superman
Nietzsche’s Philosophy
Nihilism
Nihilism is characterized by the death of the monotheistic God. After his death, we see a man possessing divine virtues: the Superman. His morale is strong, dominant, and possesses superior values. This is what gives meaning to Earth (according to the “old” God). After his critique of values, Nietzsche announces new values, necessitating nihilism. This historical process of Western power in the 19th century influenced Nietzsche’s philosophy in two ways:
- Negative: As a logical consequence of Western decadence and therefore critical of its institutions.
- Positive: As the start of a new era and a new man.
This nihilism occurs in three stages:
- Doubt: The destruction of old values produces disorientation.
- Reflection: Distance from old values and configuration of the nihilistic process.
- New Assessment: Starts from the perspective of a new being and assumes the affirmation of life and hope: “the great aurora,” an instinctive act rooted in the will to power.
The Eternal Return
The eternal return is the culmination of the philosophy of salvation—loving the world, life, instincts, and passions. While the eternal return substitutes for traditional morality, metaphysics, religion, and philosophy, Nietzsche does have a moral theory. It discards traditional judgments and embraces change. It accepts selfishness as the Archimedean point of moral balance. It also creates new values distinguished by their relationship to life.
The Superman
The Superman does not believe in the equality of individuals. Their morale expresses the recovery of vital instincts, the love of life above all, and the will to power (understood as an essential feature of life). This is a new ontology stating that multiple elements respond to the plurality of being in its many manifestations. It is also the source of a new conception of truth and language, as well as the substrate for new values. Conceptual metaphor replaces language, leaving the imagination open and free to represent reality in many ways, not univocally. This affirms life, joy, the desire to live forever—life as eternal return.
To become the Superman, man undergoes three metamorphoses:
- Camel: Obedient and loyal to what is imposed.
- Lion: The great nihilist denier who rejects all values.
- Child: Symbolizes innocence and forgetting—a new beginning.
Moral Critique
Nietzsche’s moral critique addresses the features of morality entrenched in Christianity. For Nietzsche, this morality is unnatural, controlling natural impulses to enslave men and defend values like modesty and humility. It aims to establish a morality of active and creative gentlemen with a will to power, against the slave morality—an instinct for revenge against superior life. Religion promotes and justifies slave morality. Therefore, Nietzsche criticizes established religion for alienating humans and celebrating weakness.
His harshest criticism targets philosophy for considering reality static and immutable. This critique has two aspects: logical and epistemological. The logical aspect criticizes the conception of reality as static and unchanging and the belief in two worlds: the “apparent” (sensible and changeable) and the “real” (equivalent to the world of ideas). This separation stems from philosophical prejudices against life and is a symptom of decadence. Nietzsche’s traditional metaphysical error is outlined in the four theses of “Twilight of the Idols.”
Nietzsche links his critique of morality and ontology. Platonic-Christian morality is associated with a two-world ontology. Accepted values are projections onto “another world,” and realizing these values guarantees a place in that world.
The epistemological critique targets the genesis of categories and concepts in metaphysics. The error lies in traditional metaphysics attempting to establish correspondence between reality and concepts, claiming to show a common essence. Nietzsche doesn’t abandon concepts, as they are needed to address the future. This error is due to the design of concept formation, which doesn’t follow a logical process, contrary to what previous philosophers believed. Nietzsche proposes that only aesthetic behavior (creative and ephemeral) can detect reality. He adds a close, constituent relationship between concept and language, meaning philosophers’ basic outlines are conditioned by previous linguistic schemas. As concepts are based on traditional metaphysics, language deceives us.