Friedrich Nietzsche was a 19th century German philosopher who believed in the life-affirmation of the now. He is one of the first existentialist philosophers known for his concepts and ideas including the 'death of God,' 'the will to power,' and 'master-slave morality.'
Life of Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche was born of October 15, 1844 and died on August 25, 1900 at the age of 55. He was a son of a Protestant minister, studied classical philosophy at Bonn and gained a professorship at the University of Basel at the remarkable age of only 24. After ten years, ill health forced him to retire into a solitary lifestyle traveling across Europe where he devoted himself to writing and recuperation.
He eventually achieved worldwide fame during the last ten years of his life. He was probably unaware, since in 1889, when he was 45 years old, he suffered a final breakdown and remained insane until his death.
Nietzsche's Philosophy and Influences
Perhaps because of his father's influence, he was particularly hostile to Christianity, which he called a "slave morality." In it he saw the resentment of the weak towards the strong. Those who failed, as they lacked the inner strength of character, sought revenge not in this life but in a fictional 'other' world, where some other power (God) would wreak vengeance in their behalf.
Another influence, to a certain extent, was philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. It is on the metaphysical analysis of the "will" in which Nietzsche saw the fundamental driving force of the individual as expressed in the need to dominate and control the external forces operating upon him. As such, the individual requires what the existentialists would later give him, the power to be master of his own destiny, as true in Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy.
Unlike Schopenhauer however, Nietzsche did not believe in resisting the will power but something to pursue and to affirm. He did not also advocate the dominance of the strong over the weak, rather, he described how the domination of the strong results in, and is necessary to, what is now called the 'evolutionary progress of the human being.'
As Nietzsche claims, it is not constituted in physical, but rather psychical, a force - that the strong are those who are more complete as human beings, who can control their passions, and who will be able to channel into a creative force the will to power.
Recommended Works by Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche's writings are varied and cover diverse topics, from ethics and religion to metaphysics and epistemology.
- The Birth of Tragedy, 1872
- Human, All Too Human, 1878
- Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1883- 85
- Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
- The Genealogy of Morals, 1887
Sources:
Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una Mcgovern, Chambers, 2002
Dictionary of Modern Thinkers, edited by Alan Bullock and R.B. Woodings, London: Fontana, 1983
Illustrated Biographical Dictionary, edited by John Clark, London, Chancellor Press, 1994
Philosophy, the Great Thinkers, by Philip Stokes, Capella, 2007
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