Friedrich Nietzsche: One of the Greatest Thinkers of All Time

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Friedrich Nietzsche was without a doubt one of the most influential thinkers of the 19th century. He was a man who ventured to question all of man's beliefs. He was out to seek the important questions in life, not always their answers. Some consider Nietzsche to be one of the first existentialist philosophers along with Søren Kierkegaard. He was the inspiration for many philosophers, poets, sociologists, and psychologists including Sigmund Freud. His goal to seek explanations for society's commonly accepted values was an inspiration for Freud's psychoanalysis theory1. Nietzsche's life as well as his theories such as the will to power, the Übermensch, eternal recurrence, and his thoughts on religion all had a momentous affect on 19th and 20th century philosophy.

Friedrich (Wilhelm) Nietzsche was born October 15, 1844 in Röcken bei Lützen, Prussia. His name comes from the Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, because he was born the same day of the King's 49th birthday. Looking back on Nietzsche's life, it is clear that his family set the stage for who he would become, but not in the way they would have liked to. Nietzsche's father, uncle, and grandfathers were all Lutheran ministers. Religion played a major role in Nietzsche's early life and the life of his family. However, being in the constant presence of religious though resulted in Nietzsche becoming very critical of religion. His harsh words for religion would go on to be published in many of his works during his career. When Nietzsche was five, his father died insane and the death of his two-year-old brother shortly followed. His father's death has led many to speculate that the cause for Nietzsche's future insanity was hereditary.

Later on in life in 1864 he went and...

... middle of paper ...

... been a building block for what would become existentialism.

There is a lot to be said of this man whose life was unfortunately ended short by insanity. His theories were groundbreaking, ideas one of a kind, and had a very distinct and difficult style of writing. He was able to ignore objective truths and untruths, right and wrong, and focus on the individual society and what it's made up of. He laid the foundation for numerous of other great thinkers, a new movement called existentialism, and even mistakenly the Nazis. His name is still uttered every day around the world in school buildings, books, discussions, and magazines not only because of what he said, but because of the impact what he said had on the world. Friedrich Nietzsche to this day is unsurprisingly regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of his time and will remain that way for centuries to come.

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