The Madman Nietzsche

An indisputable influential figure within modern thought is German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, a polarizing thinker whose text Thus Spoke Zarathustra has garnered abundant acclaim for its encapsulation of a shift within late nineteenth-century Western thought. Nietzsche’s personal history significantly affected the development of his philosophy as exemplified through the rhetoric, literary style and speeches found within Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This report will follow the origins of Friedrich Nietzsche, the contextualization of his philosophical stances within his famed text, and the profound influence of his literature in relation to late nineteenth-century thought and beyond. BACKGROUND In 1844, Friedrich Nietzsche was born in a small

“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 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.

Friedrich Nietzsche, a prominent German philosopher in the 19th century is one of the most well-read philosophers of the past two-centuries. His ideas regarding morality and nature continue to be discussed and debated to this day among scholars of all beliefs.

God the creator of the universe, earth and ourselves can he really be dead as the madman has proclaimed him to soon be in Nietzsche’s “Madman”. To understand if we have killed God in this postmodern world and become all of his murders we need to analyze religion, technology and what the meaning of belief is. In all honesty we are closer than we were before to understanding what Nietzsche was trying to communicate in “The Madman” and “New Mortality”, this is greatly due to technological advances in the twentieth and twenty first century. Things such as space exploration, computers, general acceptance that anyone can believe anything they choose to, have opened the world up to more things than ever could’ve been imagined in 1882. These

To begin with, Nietzsche’s contribution to the study of ‘morality’ has three core aspects: a criticism of moral genealogists, modern evolutionary theory, and a critique of moral values (Ansell-Pearson, xv). For Nietzsche, reading morality is complex due to the numbers of errors people have incorporated into their fundamental ways of thinking, feeling and living (Ansell-Pearson, xvi). Furthermore, these errors are the example of an individual’s complete ignorance of oneself and the world. For years, people have been

According to Immanuel Kant, Enlightenment was a man’s growth from his own self-imposed immaturity. He thought the motto of the Enlightenment was along the lines of one should not be afraid to use their own knowledge to understand things. He also thought that laziness and cowardice were two reasons why men acted or performed the way they

Friedrich Nietzsche’s protagonist, “The Madman” infamously said that ‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him’ (1882:125). Writing from Germany at the end of the 19th Century, Nietzsche had a front row seat to the early fracturing of Western European Christendom which, in his view had wrought iron restraints around society. Christian scholars, most notably Yoder (1984), Krieder (1999), and Murray (2004), see the end of Christendom as something to be celebrated, critiquing its pseudo-Christian roots, and the imperialistic nature of the Constantinian shift. Leithart (2010) believes these scholars have fundamentally misunderstood the historic origins of Christendom, and failed to grasp its importance as a spiritual template for modern

Moral values are rules that help us make decisions about right and wrong, good and bad. Moral values govern the choices we make and our behavior. They form the foundation of our lives and what we want to become. Moral values can be derived from family, religion, society or even self. The moral values derived from family and self may not be subject to change but the values derived from the society and government are subject to change as the laws governing us change.

Nietzsche, from On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense 1. Humans invented cognition, but were arrogant about it. a. Humans need to realize that their time is short and fleeting. b.

“The motto of the Enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding.” (Kant 54). Most have no understanding that Kant says because they weren’t given the sense to use their own understanding. I feel that Kant dares us to have courage because when he discovered his own understanding he felt a sense of greatness and accomplishment. Kant gives us some encouragement to think beyond the box because he knows that if he can do great things that everyone has the potential to do great things also. “…others will soon enough take the tiresome job over me. The guardians who have kindly taken upon themselves the work of supervision will soon see to it that by far the largest part of mankind should consider the step forward to maturity not only as difficult but also as highly dangerous.” (Kant 54). Thinking controls the mass chaos that could ruin society, yet we only have a few individuals who are truly original thinkers. Others pretend to be true thinker but in true are re-readers. For those of society who are not true thinkers stepping out of immaturity is a dangerous step to themselves and the ones around them. Most aren’t prepared to step out of their comfort zone because they never were meant to or prepared. The “guardians” have double

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

In his book, Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche aggressively challenges conventional schools of thought dating back to the ancients. Philosophy, as we know it, began over two-thousand years ago in Athens with the birth of Socrates. Socrates introduced the practice of reasoning and dialectics—the art of discourse hoping to bring individuals closer to some universal truth—to an Athenian society that previously held aesthetics, not logic, as indicative of goodness. Socrates revolutionized life in Athens, and by extension, the Western tradition. His beliefs are found in works written centuries after his death. He is heralded as the “father of philosophy.”

Enlightenment, a stage in life where one should strive for. According to the text “What is Enlightenment” written by Immanuel Kant, enlightenment is “Sapere aude!” (Kant 105), which translates to “dare to know.” One reached enlightenment once they have achieved maturity and freedom. Throughout Immanuel Kant’s work “What is Enlightenment,” (Kant 105) he suggested that mankind developed a dependency on others for answers. Immanuel Kant believed that humankind is lazy and full of cowardice. Kant believed that humans depend too much on others by basing their decisions and thoughts solely on the words of others. Due to dependency, humankind developed a habit of laziness throughout time. This habit eventually serves as the main barrier prohibiting one from being enlightened because one is too lazy to seek the truth or oneself. Kant suggested that in order to each enlightenment, one must not be afraid to take the first step and use one’s own judgment and understanding. One must separate oneself from immaturity, and to achieve that, one must have fearlessness and vigor. Kant also speaks of freedom and suggested that one should have the freedom to express their opinion and act on it, one should be able to criticize what is wrong and change it.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s own skepticism symbolized the secular changes in contemporary Western civilization, in which he details mankind’s break away from faith into a new rule of chaos. In Book 5 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche establishes that “God is dead”, meaning that modern Europe has abandoned religion in favor of rationality and science (Nietzsche 279). From this death, the birth of a ‘new’ infinite blossoms in which the world is open to an unlimited amount of interpretations that do not rely on the solid foundations of faith in religion or science. However, in contrast to the other philosophers of his age such as Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Nietzsche deviates from the omniscient determinism of history towards a