Feuerbach and Nietzsche

Nietzsche was a revolutionary author and philosopher who has had a tremendous impact on German culture up through the twentieth century and even today. Nietzsche's views were very unlike the popular and conventional beliefs and practices of his time and nearly all of his published works were, and still are, rather controversial, especially in On the Genealogy of Morals. His philosophies are more than just controversial and unconventional viewpoints, however; they are absolutely extreme and dangerous if taken out of context or misinterpreted. After Nietzsche's death it took very little for his sister to make some slight alterations to his works to go along with Nazi ideology.

For my sixth topics for consideration assignment I chose to explain what I think Nietzsche means when he says to lie creatively. I believe Nietzsche is talking about true happiness with yourself when he says to lie creatively. In psychology people have many selves of their personality. We all have a self-serving bias which actually is a lie to yourself to keep you happy or feel good about yourself. It is natural for every one of us to feel better than other people, but it is not the truth. We also do not act exactly like ourselves in public the way we do in private. Our self-presentation to the public is not exactly a lie for who we are as an identity. It is actually a self-helping mechanism we use to protect ourselves around people, and help us advance to gain better opportunities. We tend to make ourselves look better, and we act like we are important, and special, but we are not all special in reality. If we did not naturally lie to ourselves about being great and special, the population of humanity may struggle worse with

As Nietzsche points out, within society there is a tendency to conflate religious standards with morality. In fact, it is difficult to discuss morality at all without running into issues that appear to be religious by their nature, but which, upon reflection, do not need to be put under that blanket. According to Nietzsche, we tend to mix religion and morality together because that is how we developed morality from the beginning of humanity. In fact, “Nietzsche believes that all

Religion is that which grows out of, and gives expression to, experience of the holy in its various aspects. (Rudolf Otto)

In Plato’s apology, the story is told of how Chaerephon, friend of Socrates, went to the temple at Delphi to ask the oracle a question pertaining to the wisdom of Socrates, and how it compares to the rest of the men on earth. “He asked if any man was wiser than I, and the Pythian replied that no one was wiser” (Plato). This response was very confusing to Socrates because he recognized that he was not wise at all, and it troubled him for some time. Socrates then tries to refute the oracle by bringing a supposedly wise man from town to the temple to show the Pythian that he was wrong, but when they get there, Socrates realizes that the wise man was not wise at all, and neither of them knew

Progress is complacency. Mankind lazes around in the incandescent knowledge of ostensible progress, illiterate in the true nature of man. Progress is movement towards a destination, not a destination in and of itself. Presently, our world has progressed only marginally since the 19th century, when the world of enlightened thinkers shifted away from Nihilism towards Modernism. Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the seminal thinkers of the era, rejected nihilism and the essence of life. For Nietzsche, “we are simply random gatherings of molecules that cohere and experience consciousness for a short time before dissolving again into nothingness” (Backman, 860). An assorted collection of Nietzsche’s texts, including The Gay Science and ‘Good and Evil,’ ‘Good and Bad,’ suggest that Nietzsche would be inordinately condemnatory of the present state of the West, incredulous to the false notion– myth¬– of progress. Undergirded by democracy, “a political system that gives fools an equal share of influence” (Backman, 861) Nietzsche would argue that Western society has eschewed

In this Commentary of sections 1-7 of essay two in Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals, I will give a brief overview of the text, to help with showing the content that the comment covers, the go deeper into the individual sections and relate them to Nietzsche’s way of thinking and also look into any problems or solutions offered by those arguments.

Nietzsche and rand both have some interesting way of viewing life. Nietzsche believed that humans should live life as they want and there should be no rules on how to live. He also believes that truth is a perception, and it is something that could only be achieved by someone who neglects everything known to be significant. It is also similar to Ayn Rand’s idea.

After connecting the passage to Nietzsche’s opinion of a fulfilled lifestyle, I believe that he would disagree with Smith’s way of living. The two have contrasting ideas, in which Nietzsche’s seems to be a more ethical one in the fullest sense.

Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, but perhaps also the most misunderstood. Born in the Prussian Province of Saxony nearing the end of 1844, Nietzsche grew into his philosophical ideals. His works encompass a wide array of themes, covering all things from truth and morality, to language, cultural theory, power and consciousness to the meaning of existence and much more in between.MORE- can be about hitler using nietzsche and about nietzsche's life. Hitler and Nazis misleadingly glorified Nietzsche’s work to justify their own regime; they, however, not only misunderstood Nietzsche's stances on Jews, the superiority of Germanic peoples, large governments and mass morality, but were aided in their

During the latter parts of the Nineteenth Century, the German existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a great deal on his ideas of morality, values, and life. His writings were controversial, but they greatly affected European thought. It can be argued that Nietzschean philosophy was a contributing factor in the rise of what is considered our world's most awful empire, the Third Reich.

In Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche writes, "My objection against the whole of sociology in England and France remains that it knows from experience only the forms of decay, and with perfect innocence accepts its instincts of decay as the norm of sociological value-judgments. The decline of life, the decrease in the power to organize, that is to tear open clefts, subordinate and super-ordinate -- all this has been formulated as the ideal in contemporary sociology." (p 541). The culture of Europe at the time of Nietzsche's writing was experiencing a general decline in vitality which was exemplified in Christianity (Platonism) and anarchy or nihilism. Nietzsche saw himself as a kind of philosophical doctor, capable of diagnosing the

Humanity’s natural aggression means that civilization is “constantly threatened with disintegration” and it must make every effort to ensure these urges are curbed, in order for its continued existence. He continues in this vein, by stating that, in order for people to “forgo the satisfaction of their tendency to aggression” civilization encourages us to form into groups, however for this to work their must continue to be “outsiders,” that the aggression can be turned towards. This is in accordance with On the Genealogy of Morals, where it is the Slaves ascetic nature that forces them to also control their instincts. Likewise, both Freud and Nietzsche assert that these restrictions cause people to internalise their aggressions, turning inward.

Throughout history, a wide variety of differing cultures and religions have developed and created a unique way of life for the people that practice them. One in particular is a Japanese tradition, specifically Shintoism. The primary belief is that its followers must pray to the gods or their ancestors in times of trouble in order to reach their own personal fulfillments. This religion demonstrates how god “assists” those who ask for help, or in other words, gives them some sense of hope during rough times. A statement about religion that relates to this is Ludwig Feuerbach definition of religion, “God, I have said, is the fulfiller, or the reality, of the human desires for happiness, perfection, and immortality.” By including this quote it develops a comparison between Shintoism belief and Feuerbach’s definition. Both which provide a deeper understanding of religions today.

Friedrich Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher and held in regard amongst the greatest philosophers of the early part century. He sharpened his philosophical skills through reading the works of the earlier philosophers of the 18th century such as Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Arthur Schopenhauer and African Spir; however, their works and beliefs were opposite to his own. His primary mentor was Author Schopenhauer, whose belief was that reality was built on the foundation of experience. Such as it is, one of his essays, Schopenhauer als Erzieher, published in 1874, was dedicated to Schopenhauer (Mencken, 2008). In the past two centuries, his work has had authority and influence in both