Germany is marked by a crisis that Nietzsche identifies as nihilism. Nihilism in the general sense is the belief that life is meaningless and there are no truths. This belief became prominent in Germany after World War I. Friedrich Nietzsche and Leo Strauss were German philosophers in pre and postwar Germany that are known for their writings on nihilism. The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast the concept of Nihilism from the views of Strauss and Nietzsche in order to examine why Nietzsche’s view was not as widely accepted by German youth.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher whose works focused more on the individual rather than the collective. Nietzsche was a philology professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland,
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Nietzsche is often considered a nihilist and a contributor to the rise of Nazism in German youth. Living in pre-war Germany, Nietzsche’s goal for nihilism was to prevent the emergence of the last man by encouraging men to be creators. But this had given too wide a range of possibilities, there was no guidance towards what nihilists should be creating. Strauss, who discusses nihilism during and after World War I, shows how much of an influence Nietzsche had on the young Germans. There are many parallels that can be made between these philosophers on the subject, such as: “‘Nihilism’, they would say, is a slogan used by those who do not understand the new, who see merely the rejection of their cherished ideals…” (Janssens and Tanguay, p.363). Here, Strauss shows that the people that were against nihilism did not want to accept the rejection of their civilization- such as the older generations holding onto their science and morals. This is similar to the townspeople that became offended by Zarathustra when they realized he was criticizing their desire to be the last man. It becomes apparent that the young Germans were the companions that Zarathustra (Nietzsche) was seeking when going from town to town. Nietzsche was widely accepted by the young Germans, but his intentions for nihilism were not executed as he had planned. Nietzsche hoped that nihilism would elicit the overman, who would create great things. But the young Germans that became Nazis, became creators by asserting “biological dominance” and in turn became
Friedrich Nietzsche was a brilliant and outspoken man who uses ideas of what he believe in what life is about. He did not believe in what is right and wrong because if who opposed the power. Nietzsche was against Democracy because how they depend on other people to make some different or change, while Nietzsche believe they should of just pick the ones that were gifted and talent to choose what to change. Nietzsche also does not believe in Aristocracy because how they depend on an individual person to create the rules or change those benefits for him. As you see Nietzsche did not like how they depend on one person to decide instead of each person to decide for himself for their own benefits.
...Hence he concluded that individuals of a society governed by capitalism risked falling into a state of nihilism bereft of meaning. Moreover, the solution he believed was that of a superhuman. A superhuman understands life’s lack of intransience and consequentially looks within for meaning. However, life’s transitory quality results in the superhuman having to constantly recreate in order to overcome the continuously new obstacles thrown at him. Correspondingly, Nietzsche ascertains the quest for satiation of one’s hedonistic insatiable desires, is the greatest strength for a superhuman. This is chiefly due to it being the underlying source for man’s insatiable desire to overcome. Coincidentally, the syntax, as noted by Ginsberg, is one of a pyramidal structure. The monotonic crescendo, symbolizes Solomon’s growing madness and its correlation with a heightened joy.
Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals can be assessed in regards to the three essays that it is broken up into. Each essay derives the significance of our moral concepts by observing
We have grown weary of man. Nietzsche wants something better, to believe in human ability once again. Nietzsche’s weariness is based almost entirely in the culmination of ressentiment, the dissolution of Nietzsche’s concept of morality and the prevailing priestly morality. Nietzsche wants to move beyond simple concepts of good and evil, abandon the assessment of individuals through ressentiment, and restore men to their former wonderful ability.
Friedrich Nietzsche was a critic and a German Philosopher from the 18th century. Nietzsche was the father of psychoanalysis and he formulated several philosophical concepts that have greatly contributed to the understanding of human nature. Nietzsche ideas had been misinterpreted by many people over time specifically, due to his style of writing. Nietzsche style of writing was adopted to strengthen his arguments on various controversial topics. In this paper, I will discuss Nietzsche’s idea of naturalistic morality, master morality, self-mastery morality, and how they connect with the affirmation of nature and strength.
Solomon, Robert C., ‘Nietzsche ad hominem: Perspectivism, personality, and ressentiment,' in The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 180-222.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense represents a deconstruction of the modern epistemological project. Instead of seeking for truth, he suggests that the ultimate truth is that we have to live without such truth, and without a sense of longing for that truth. This revolutionary work of his is divided into two main sections. The first part deals with the question on what is truth? Here he discusses the implication of language to our acquisition of knowledge. The second part deals with the dual nature of man, i.e. the rational and the intuitive. He establishes that neither rational nor intuitive man is ever successful in their pursuit of knowledge due to our illusion of truth. Therefore, Nietzsche concludes that all we can claim to know are interpretations of truth and not truth itself.
In 1887, two years before succumbing to utter madness, existential philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche writes his ethical polemic, On the Genealogy of Morals, in search of a man with the strength to evolve beyond humanity:
Wyatt, C. (2010). Friedrich Nietzsche. In Tameri Guide for Writers. Retrieved December 6, 2010, from http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/nietzsche.shtml
Friedrich Nietzsche was on the cutting edge of sociological and philosophical theory when he lived in the latter part of the Nineteenth century. His ideas and theories about the world around him inspired some of the most recognized schools of thought in the modern world(or post-modern as it is seen). His post-humous work The Will to Power is the culmination of his life's work and allows for all who read it to understand the genius behind one of the greatest thinkers of all time. In The Will to Power, Nietzsche explains how the will is the controlling device each of us, and that the true will should only be used on oneself and not to take advantage of or injure another. Nietzsche seeks all who read it to understand how this is the true exercise of will and how the world has been run down by people using their will in the wrong way.
When reading Nietzsche, we can pick up from him that he was very educated often better than most philosophers. Or so he thought. Although he had a very poor outlook on his culture and everyday society, he had very strong opinions when it came to humans and their actions. He made strong assumptions whether people agreed with him or not. An assumption such as, he believed most philosophers and researchers were not as educated as he was, which we pick up in his writings. Nietzsche’s main goal in his essays are to educate those on morality. First, Nietzsche believed that specific words and human actions have evolved over time to things they were never intended to become. Nietzsche
...ot resent during Nietzsche's lifetime. However his ideas of how individual perspectives and will are shaped or influenced within a given culture are very much observable in these media forms. Mass culture as propagated by the media has imposed certain moral considerations and values on individuals that they may not necessarily have subscribed to. In effect this has led to individuals how function like zombies, following blindly concepts carried by the media as the only real issues. The mass culture advanced by the media has advanced some form of complacency that has restricted issues under consideration and that need attention by human beings. The scope of human thinking, as well as their autonomy in making decisions, has been taken away as individuals continue to operate like robots being directed by other entities, perhaps for easy political and social management.
Prominent philosophers that have written on nihilism include Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche described Christianity as a nihilistic religion, because it removed meaning from this earthly life, and focused instead on a supposed afterlife. He also saw nihilism as a natural result of the idea that "God is Dead", and insisted that it was something to be overcome, by returning meaning to the earth. Heidegger described nihilism as the state where "there is nothing left of Being as such", and argued that nihilism rested on the reduction of Being to mere value. Definition of Nihilism The Latin indefinite pronoun nihili ('nothing') is a reduced form of nihilum, a term that derives from ne-hilom, an emphatic form of the negation ne by means of hilum, meaning 'the slightest amount' and of uncertain origin.
Nietzsche’s philosophy, if one should call it that, centers around the belief that living beings want to exert their “will to power,” and are at their best when they’re allowed to do so. He believes that dogmatic philosophy and certain moralities curb an individual’s ability to exercise this “will to power,” by proclaiming there is an objective truth that everyone must submit to, and hence compromise free thought and freedom. In a way, Nietzsche is rejecting the entire institution of philosophy, by ironically putting forward his own philosophy, which one can compare and contrast with the work of other philosophers.
Then Friedrich Nietzsche, the ‘Father of Nihilism’, who took that slur in stride. He took the insult and turned it into an idea that an individual should