Friedrich Nietzsche

Despite being one of the greatest philosophers of the last millennium, Friedrich Wilhem Nietzsche may also be the most misunderstood. He has become a walking paradox. Today he is regarded as one of the most important thinkers, yet in his lifetime, he could hardly give away his books. Sigmund Freud revered him as one of the great minds in the history of psychoanalysis, yet Nietzsche went insane at the age of 44. He publicly detested German culture, yet German soldiers received copies of his book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra during World War I. Nietzsche also abhorred Nationalism, yet Adolf Hitler misinterpreted his work, using it as an influence for Mein Kampf and a building block for the Nazi eugenics movement, which created a tremendous amount of notoriety for Nietzsche. Regardless, Friedrich Nietzsche’s works remain some of the most influential additions to modern day philosophy, several of which are still very prevalent today.

Friedrich Nietzsche was born on October 15th, 1844 in Röcken, a small farming village in Prussia. Nietzsche’s father, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche was a Lutheran pastor while his mother, Franziska Oehler was a former schoolteacher. Nietzsche's paternal side had a strong history in Lutheran studies dating back two generations. However, his personal experiences with religion were limited after his father died from a brain aneurysm when Nietzsche was five years old. After his father passed, Nietzsche's family moved to Naumburg an der Saale. Beginning in 1858, Nietzsche attended Schulpforta, a renowned boarding school only a few miles from his home in Naumburg. Schulpforta had a strong emphasis on religion, ironically; this is where Nietzsche began to question the state of religion after reading works including David S...

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...e, Friedrich W. The Birth of Tragedy. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich W., and Walter A. Kaufmann. Beyond Good and Evil. New York: Vintage, 1989. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich W., and Walter A. Kaufmann. The Gay Science. New York: Vintage, 1974. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich W. Human, All Too Human. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1984. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich W. "Nietzche's Letters: 1887." Nietzche' s Letters: 1887. Web. 01 May 2012. .

Nietzsche, Friedrich W., Walter A. Kaufmann, and R. J. Hollingdale. The Will to Power. New York: Random House, 1967. Print.

Schaberg, William H. The Nietzsche Canon: A Publication History and Bibliography. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1995. Print.

Wicks, Robert, "Friedrich Nietzsche", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),.