Friedrich Nietzsche's Big Ideas

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

“As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples.” Nietzsche was one of the first modern philosophers to rebel against rationalism and when World War I came about, the revolution against religion truly became a legitimate statement. Friedrich Nietzsche strongly believed that many of those that practiced religion were led to the acceptance of slave morality. Religion had always played a fundamental role in society as it sets strict boundaries and standards of what is morally correct and incorrect. However, Nietzsche claims that, “Human nature is always driven by “ ‘the will to power’ ”, but religion will tell one otherwise, saying that one should forbid their bad desires. In Nietzsche’s

Nietzsche suggest the alternate path of morality based on faith in oneself. ‘One could conceive of such a pleasure and power of self-determination, such as a freedom of will’. To go down this path, one must become aware that their actions can be their own, rather than in accordance with faith in God.

Nietzsche starts this second essay by looking at and reviewing the importance of our ability to make and keep promises. To hold yourself and others to a promise means having the need of both a good memory, the ability to remember making said promise and a strong feeling of confidence what will happen next and a long term ability to know you will be able to fulfil said promise. In order for us to make the commitment and have the confidence to do so means that on some level, we must give a feeling and make ourselves into the ideal of becoming in a way predictable, to be able to achieve this we as humans need a set of guideline to follow, certain rules that make this predictability a possibility, the certainty that a set of actions will lead to a set of reactions both internally and externally.

In “The Portable Nietzsche,” Nietzsche investigates the meaning of truth in the apparent world and its relationship to the proposed existence of God. More specifically, the philosopher attempts to explain how our world is misguided by the moral framework propagated by Christianity. This religion promises a God created “true world,” but only for those who are the most pious and repentant. However, even as this promise becomes more distant and obscure, the quest for everlasting life still creates a pervasive set of morals that taint one’s views of truth in the apparent world. Hence, the only way to overcome this obstacle and attain truth in this (apparent) world, is by divesting from the beliefs and moral framework created by Christianity.

The extreme nature of the Third Reich was the consequence of the Nazi ideology. The structure of the Nazi ideology stems from the spencerian notion of “survival of the fittest”. Another concept that the Nazi’s misappropriated was “will to power” written by Friedrich Nietzsche which links to the fundamental element of social, political and economic relationships. Hitler was the very embodiment of the ideology because he intertwined the Nazi movement and ideology with himself even before he became the chancellor. As Ian Kershaw states:

German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, is one of the most read, least understood- yet influential thinker who brought forth new questions for many philosophers to follow. There are many accusations and rumors around Nietzsche. In “What Nietzsche Really Said” these accusations and rumors that surrounded Nietzsche are allayed and supported by his impact and influential views. “What Nietzsche really said depends on what one reads and how one interpret what ones reads” thus, the interpretation of these accusations and rumors are either helpful or harmful about Nietzsche. Three helpful rumors about Nietzsche is that he adored power, he was a (pre) postmodernist and argued fallaciously. Although he was apolitical, people believed that his “will

This piece of work will try to find the answer to the question ‘In Nietzsche’s first essay in the Genealogy of Morals, does he give a clear idea of what good and bad truly are and what his opinion of those ideas is’. It will give a brief overview of his first essay, it will also go into greater detail of what he claims good and bad truly are, and finally look at what he is trying to prove with this argument. It will look at his background in order to see if and how that has influenced his work and opinions.

Friedrich Nietzsche was a man built upon contradictions. So much in fact, that one could argue him to be both one of the most anti-democratic thinkers and one of the most democratic thinkers of our time. If one attempts to read Nietzsche’s works as a whole, you may undoubtedly be persuaded that he is one of the most anti democratic political theorists in the modern era because of his insistence upon the need of a hierarchical, aristocratic society and his anti-equality stance on the relationship between men and women. But, if one reads select pieces of Nietzsche without prior bias of his works, one could argue that his views on the necessity of individuality and creativity make him a purely democratic thinker. This paradox creates problems

Friedrich Nietzsche, an extremely controversial thinker of his time, was an “outspoken critic of German nationalism, anti-Semitism, and religious dogmatism” (Kellner). Indubitably, Nietzsche has had a great impact on the improvement of twentieth century social thought. Key ideas from Nietzsche are included in the following: The Gay Science, On the Genealogy of Morality and Beyond Good and Evil. In the Gay Science, Nietzsche presents the famous image of the madman declaring “God is dead… and we have killed him”. Much of Nietzsche’s work problematizes Christianity and urges humanity to rethink the basis of morality. The artful self-stylization that may be implied by this is also suggested, and how to live without religious certainty. After the loss of religion as a guide and path to follow in his time, Nietzsche acknowledged the need for direction and understood that this could be possible by creating certain values for society to accept and follow.

For this pride contains within itself the 23 most flattering estimation of the value of knowing” (Nietzsche, 1). According to his words, people`s intelligence and senses are not purposed to lead to truth: they rather try to deceive human`s mind. Nietzsche compares the process of generating illusions with dreams, which are permitted to deceive people every night. Each person wants to differ from the monotonous community, and with the aim to become individual he tries to deny truth by easily exchanging it for illusions. Factually, such illusions which later become the basis for new concepts are a method for creating new visions for typical

This revolutionary regeneration connects to Rosenberg’s racial construction theories. The Nazi’s sought to regenerate Germany with their euthanasia program to remove those who were not of the Aryan race as they were seen as tainting the people of German society. Nietzsche’s concept of the overman and his idea on eternal recurrence was misinterpreted by the Nazi leaders and theorists. The overman for Nietzsche takes a long time to become and achieve. As God is dead, God was the source of all values and there needs to be a new being that prescribes values on to the people. The overman is the creator of new values without having the values of the old tablets as found in Christian doctrine. In order to become the overman, one must accept there are no absolute truths, there is suffering in life, and one must control their impulses and behavior. In addition, one must accept that the world is in a state of flux as life is constantly changing and adapting and we must adapt as life does. Furthermore, Nietzsche’s overman is courageous, self-expressive, powerful, and has strong influence over others (Kaufmann

So overall the quote to me means that every man has the power and the strength in them to overcome the suffering that is necessary to become great, self-commanding men. However, Nietzsche also feels like mankind is doomed to fall into a type of slavery where they will never be able to truly free and self-commanding.

When reading Nietzsche, The Will to Power, he talks about both a “Metaphysical” and “Organic”. The metaphysical that everything from a rock to a person is “the will to power” same as animism, everything has power. I tend to like his theories on organic. Organic is the will to power is specifically related to all life, and only living life. He states on 37 (Spring-Fall 1887) that, “The repudiated world versus an artificially built "true, valuable” one (Nietzsche)”. Stating man has power, man has purpose, and man has ideas. Ideas like what makes a king powerful, is it his ideas or his army? He talks about, “Detached and idealistic, values, instead of dominating and guiding action, turn against action and condemn it.” Which Foucault talks about

Nietzsche’s overman has the right to make promises because he, according to Nietzsche, is the only being who is able to keep those promises. For Nietzsche, an overman has the strength of character: the reliability and regularity to be able to make promises (“Second essay: ‘Guilt’, ‘bad conscience’ and related matters” 36). Nietzsche connects the would promise with the word responsibility, and the importance of that in a man who has the ability to make promises.