Friedrich Nietzsche & Nihilism Friedrich Nietzsche is a German philosopher, poet, and cultural critic whose work has had much influence on Western philosophy and modern thought. He began his career studying language and was the youngest-ever occupant of the Chair of classical Philology at the University of Basel. However due to health issues, he could not maintain this position at the university and to resign. Following the years after his departure, he began writing most of his philosophical work. Nietzsche is most well known for his writings about Nihilism, which comes from the Latin word nihil which refers to something that does not exist. It also appears in the word annihilate, which means to completely …show more content…
Passive nihilism can be further identified as a declining power of the spirit. One who is a passive nihilist recognizes that external values are empty and have no true purpose other than to perhaps make people feel good. This belief renders the ideas of conscience useless as well, causing a lack of personal authority and responsibility. This belief causes a lack of willpower and creates a sense of mistrust towards society. Those who believe in passive nihilism lose their beliefs, goals, and aspirations. The lack of authority in one’s life leads to what Nietzsche calls “self-narcotization”, which involves the person seeking relief in whatever appears to maintain a sense of authority. A passive nihilist who tries to escape from this belief will reevaluate their values only to fail and fall deeper into …show more content…
Nietzsche did not write books on Nihilism because it was what he advocated, he wrote the books because he was afraid of what Nihilism could do to society. In truth, Nietzsche is actually an existentialist. Nietzsche once spoke about “The Death of God” in his books, which refers to how modern society no longer uses values or a moral code to determine their actions. A Nihilist looks at the death of God and says that since there is no perfect way of determining values, there must not be any at all. In response Nietzsche states that even if there is no absolute values, that does not mean that values do not exist. Rather, Nietzsche takes a relativist stance on morals and values. Some may see that since Nietzsche has removed the “chains of religion” he can give a fair response to the values of differing and strange perspectives. By examining the situation he can determine what is “true” to the corresponding perspective. This is why Nietzsche believes that the greatest “sin” of Christian and other religious groups is that they pretend that their truths are absolute and universal. Nietzsche believes that values are a fluctuating element of our lives that change based on historical, and philosophical circumstances. Nietzsche believes that many values should be destroyed, however he differs from Nihilism because he does not believe all values should be
Nihilism is a philosophy often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher. The main idea of Nietzsche’s nihilism is to separate from all of one’s values. This basically means to leave all of one’s knowledge behind and start from scratch. This kind of thinking could also be compared to Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil.” A part of Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil” is the free spirit of the soul. This means that the mind should never become too attached to one point of view and must often jump from viewpoint to viewpoint. This is similar to Nietzsche’s view of nihilism because Nietzsche repeatedly tells the reader that in order to become nihilist, one must separate from their values completely, and start with a clean slate. The
He has been seen to discourage the complete trust within faith because of how the infinite forces humans to cast away their primal nature and subject themselves to an unreal force. To defend his stance he says “I have drawn back the curtain from the corruption of man. In my mouth, this word is at least free of one suspicion: that it might involve a moral accusation of man. It is meant—let me emphasize this once more—moraline-free.” (Nietzsche, 572) Nietzsche is stating that he proving that faith is not a good influence, instead it is a corrupting influence that forces humans to submit. This infinite force commands people to cast away their values for new ones that they haven’t developed for themselves. Even though Nietzsche believes that the believers of the infinite have not developed their own values, he is wrong for they know that their values can still exist within faith. To combat the latter thought Nietzsche goes on to claim “Pity is the practice of Nihilism. To repeat: this depressive and contagious instinct crosses those instincts which aim at the preservation of life and at the enhancement of its value.” (Nietzsche, 573) Nietzsche is on a mission to prove that faith does not influence living a meaningful and moral life. He claims that faith is just a way for humans to justify feeling pity towards others. Nietzsche is incredibly convinced that faith is pointless, but he couldn’t be more
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.
Throughout his writings, Nietzsche aims to inform his readers that we as humans can only reach our potential by following our passions and ignoring the flawed ideals of the church. Under the doctrine of the church’s morality, innate passions of its followers must be abolished in order to become proper Christians. By destroying the inner passions of its followers, the church is doing a great disfavor by using morality to rule out nature from their lives.
Nietzsche was an existentialist philosopher. Extentialism is all about an individual. Social institutions such as religion traditionally impose values on people who accept these values as inherently good and worthy of pursuing. However, in Nietzsche’s world, God is dead and can no longer provide
The question of what may result from the fostering of critical, individual thought may have never even risen let alone remain unanswered if not for the consideration of some of the world’s greatest minds. Rigorously questioning the objectivity and truth of values whilst preserving a focus on the impacts of religion and morality on contemporary culture, Friedrich Nietzsche was, and remains to be, one of the most notably influential figures within the domain of 19th century philosophy. Upon viewing a number of citizens who were adopting a pessimistic and distrustful standpoint against the societal values of the time, Nietzsche came to the belief that the system of morals which had been lived by were no longer resonating with the maturing populace and that God was effectively useless; it is for this reason that Nietzsche announces the “Death of God”. Though a particular brand of nihilist may have viewed this passing as a detriment to the social cohesion of the populace due to an absence of any universal, absolute values - once attributed to God - Nietzsche proposed that this was not necessarily the case. Instead,
Nihilism originated somewhere around the mid-1800s, it was a shift from the social philosophy around that time which viewed life with purpose and meaning which was found usually though God, or some religious doctrine, however Nihilism is the philosophy that dictates the meaninglessness in life; it leaves an empty and void existence. Nihilism is usually associated with German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is often although not a Nihilist himself Nietzsche wrote a considerable amount concerning Nihilism and its implications as a philosophy. Nietzsche saw Nihilism as a growing problem, he believed that as the world grew conscious of Nihilism it would destroy all morality and meaning man has created, this is because he would realize the
As of 2013, fifty-four percent of Americans still had a belief in God, although in some other minorities, that number was larger (Gallup). Despite this, there was a time when some of the greatest minds of the time felt as if God had no modern purpose in human’s lives. One such example of this was that of Friedrich Nietzsche, who went down in history as the man who declared God “dead”. Though this might seem like a hypothetical call to atheism, he was instead showing how the people of the world had come to outgrow a need for God with the coming of the renaissance (Lawhead 454). However, the contradictions found within Nietzsche’s argument
Raising a virtual child has made me aware of how critical the choices parents make for their child are to their maturity. By paying close attention to the minor details of my virtual child’s behavior, I have started to grasp the understanding of an infant’s physical, cognitive, and social development. Every decision I made for Rosie has gradually helped shape her personality. Although some mistakes were made, my judgments were based off of my own thoughts as well as the nature of American culture.
The fact that he gave up and refused to fight back gives room for more findings. He disagrees with the Christian community for making Jesus a martyr and sees that in so doing, they had made the Christ teachings vague. Nietzsche wrote his works in the process of rebuilding the damage caused by Christians during the ancient days. His inclination was to show the true way in which God wanted human beings to live as opposed to what Christians were doing.
Friedrich Nietzsche was part of large family. His father’s name was Carl Ludwig Nietzsche. Carl Nietzsche was a religious man and was the preacher of a Lutheran church. His mother’s name was Franziska Oehler. Friedrich Nietzsche also had a sister and a brother. His sister’s name was Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and his brother’s name was Ludwig Joseph. At age five, Friedrich Nietzsche’s family life changed. His father passed away due to brain problem. The year after his father’s death, Ludwig Joseph the brother passed away. After the loss of his two family members, Friedrich Nietzsche, his mother, and sister moved in with their grandmother. The loss of his love ones was a very trying time for Friedrich Nietzsche, and their deaths caused Nietzsche to question his beliefs
5. Discuss Nietzsche’s theory of “will to power” and “the innocence of becoming”. Does the hypothesis of the will to power successfully “debunk” traditional religion, morality, and philosophical claims to provide the “disinterested” or “objective” truth?
Nietzsche is widely known as a critic of religion. In fact, he talks in depth about morality in regards to religion in his essays about the genealogy of morals. But the problem is not within religion itself or within morals. The problem is involved in the combination of the two to create society’s understanding of morality through a very religious lens. In fact, Nietzsche has criticism for almost any set of morals constructed by a group of individuals and meant to be applied to society as a whole. True morality, according to Nietzsche, requires a separation from these group dynamic views of morality- or at least a sincere look into where they originated and why they persist- and a movement towards a more introverted, and intrinsically personalized understanding of what morals mean in spite of the fact that “the normative force to which every member of society is exposed, in the form of obligations, codes of behavior, and other moral rules and guidelines, is disproportionally high” (Korfmacher 6).
Even though they were separated by thousands of years, hundreds of miles, and different cultures, the philosophical views of Friedrich Nietzsche and Plato can be examined and weighed against each other in many different ways. Friedrich Nietzsche, born in 1844, was a German philosopher whose main goal was to erect a new image for the people and to create a free spirit in them. Plato, born in 427 B.C., was a Greek philosopher whose main goal was to create a new way of thinking about the world itself, knowledge itself, philosophy itself, and the individual. Both philosophers have obvious similarities; their literary style of writing is perhaps the most apparent, but also their desire
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