Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German atheist philosopher whose work set a foundation the existentialist movement of the 1900's. Nietzsche was critical of religion in general, though especially Christianity, which he described as the "religion of pity." Nietzsche is famous for his statement that “God is dead.” Nietzsche instead urged a new kind of ethical development that would go beyond "Good" and "Evil." Nietzsche suffered a mental collapse in 1889, and spent the last ten years of his life unable to care for himself. During this time, his sister Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche took over his affairs, and worked to falsify and re-edit his writings in order to support her virulent anti-Semitism (a view which Nietzsche consistently abhorred, and often mocked, during his lifetime). It was her distorted version of culled and mis-quoted statements which later provided an intellectual fig-leaf for the Nazi regime.

The Übermensch (overhuman, superhuman) was a literary device used in his magnum opus, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". The Overman was to be a new kind of being which would overcome resentment and affirm the Eternal Recurrence of the same

The statement "God is dead" is often taken out of context. Originally, it appeared in Nietzsche's "The Gay Science." The story was of a mad man entering a church in day light, a lantern held aloft in his hand, telling everyone that he was looking for God. They laughed at him asking if God was lost. He told them that he was looking because "God is Dead" and every church his tomb. The man was upset, going on about how the death of God meant the loss of all meaning, as though someone had wiped away the horizon, and taken the backdrop, of existence.

Nietzsche's father Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, was a Lutheran pastor.

In his first Papal Encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" (God is Charity/Love) Pope Benedict XVI quotes from Nietzche's Beyond Good and Evil, taking very seriously Nietzsche's claim that the Church has poisoned eros (love) with dogma, and responding to it.

On Women

Friedrich Nietzsche said "Women are essentially unpeaceful" and "Man is for woman a means; the purpose is always a child. But what is woman for man?"

On Morality

Friedrich Nietzsche said "Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.", "With morality, the individual can only ascribe value to himself as a function of the herd", "I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul ... and has its basis in the primary law of things", "all morality is partisan; just as any legal system will favor certain behavior against others" and "who else should we wish to serve, if not ourselves?"

On Science and Knowledge

Friedrich Nietzsche said "I mistrust all systemizers and avoid them; the will to systematize is a lack of integrity", "there is no pre-established harmony between the furtherance of truth and the well-being of mankind", "the free-spirit is brought into disrepute chiefly by scholars who miss their thoroughness and ant-like industry in his art of regarding things", "there are many things I do not wish to know, wisdom sets a limit on knowledge too", "the fact that science as we practice it today is possible proves that the elementary instinct which protect life have ceased to function", "we have arranged for ourselves a world in which we are able to live with postulation of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes, and effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of faith, nobody could manage to live", "the irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition for it", "[too much knowledge causes us to] choke on our own reason", "creed of nihilism which I see everywhere is the result of too much learning" and "Any truth which threatens life is no truth at all, it is an error".

On Democracy

Friedrich Nietzsche said "As a political subject, it is an illusion to ask myself what I require from the state. In reality, it is a question of what the state requires from me", "culture and the state are antagonistic", "clearly, the individual will is forfeit to the demands of government - a kind of political Darwinism. The herd triumphs against, this time under the banner of the state", "the polite term for 'liberal' is mediocre", "socialism is the fantastic younger brother of an almost decrepit despotism, which it wants to succeeded", "the doctrine of free will is an invention of the ruling classes" and "madness is something rare in individuals; but in groups, parties, ages, it is the rule".

On Nihilism

Friedrich Nietzsche said "man would sooner have the void for his purpose than void of purpose".

On Darwinian Evolution

Friedrich Nietzsche said "... happy accidents are eliminated, the more highly evolved types lead nowhere; it is the average and below average types which invariably ascend" and "it is not the quantity, but the quality of humanity that we must seek to increase".

On Philosophy

Friedrich Nietzsche said "Philosophy is the dressing-up in rational argument of moral beliefs, intuitions and desires".

On Religion

Friedrich Nietzsche said "the religious nature follows the path of self-denial" and "they honored something in themselves when they honored the saint ... self mastery and the well to power".

References

• Entry on Nietzsche from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Entry on Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Nietzsche Chronicle
• Nietzsche: The Problem of Autumn
• "The Case for Nietzschean Moral Psychology"
• Deus Caritas Est, from the Vatican website
• Introducing Nietzsche, Third Edition by Laurence Gane