Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

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Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
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Life, Times, Work

• Son of Lutheran Pastor, grows up surrounded by
  Women
• Studies Theology, then Philology
• Appointed Professor in Basel at early age (1869)
• Unsuccessful as Professor, troubled by Health
  Issues he resigns in 1879 (The Birth of Tragedy
  published in 1872)
• Lives in Alpes Lodge, Italy, France, Germany
• Collapses 1889, apparently due to Syphilis
• Spends last 10 Years of his Life incapacitated
• Works Untimely Meditations, The Gay Science,
  Dawn Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and
  Evil, Genealogy of Morals

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Influences and Interlocutors
Cosima Wagner
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Immanuel Kant 1724-1804
Plato (427-347)
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God is Dead (from The Madman)

• Religion on the Defense vs. Metaphysics, Science,
  Progress and Socialism as competing
  Meta-Narratives (Jean-Francois Lyotard)
• The Predicament of Science
• "I know," said I to myself, "what science so
  persistently tries to discover, and along that
  road there is no reply to the question as to the
  meaning of my life." There is no reply but that
  which I have myself already given "What is the
  meaning of my life?" "There is none." Or "What
  will come of my life?" "Nothing." Or "Why does
  everything exist that exists, and why do I
  exist?" "Because it exists." (From Lev Tolstoy,
  Confessions)
• Disenchantment and Loss of Meaning (Max Weber)

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Science, Truth, Metaphysics

• Truth in Metaphysics Essence vs. Appearance
  (Plato), Things-in-themselves vs.
  Things-as-they-appear (Kant)
• Even applicable to Popper
• Nietzsches Truth
• A Mobile Army of Metaphors
• Useful Errors

I am afraid we are not rid of God because we
still have faith in grammar
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Truth and Language I

• We perceive the World through Language
• Social, historical, conventional,
  anthropomorphic, metaphorical
• they forged an alliance, Teheran has decided,
  she pitched the story to the producers, he
  found a solution
• No intrinsic Link between Words and Things
• A Tree could be a Klee
• Meaning is constituted through Difference (De
  Saussure, Structural Linguistics)
• Exception Onomatopoetic Words
• We invent the World through Words
• Language tricks us into atomistic Ontology
• Things as distinct, isolated, static Entities
  (The Tree)
• The Light is Shining
• How do we divide the Furniture of the World?
• Heraklit Panta Rhei (Everything Flows)

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Truth and Language II

• A A Is there Identity?
• The Importance of Relationality
• Appearance is what Essence is not
• Everything that is, is what it is by Merit of
  what it is not
• A Tale of two Humans and two Alligators
• A Pragmatist Theory of Knowledge

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Truth and Language III

• Nietzsches Style
• Self-Referentiality and Performative
  Contradictions
• Aphorisms, Poetry, Rhetoric and Inconsistency
• Creative Re-Shaping of Language
• Cf. Platos Banning of the Poets

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Nihilism and its Remedies
After Religion, Metaphycics, Language, Progress
and Reason
Disorientation, Nostalgia, Nihilism (The Madman)
Exuberance, Exhilaration, Amor Fati (343)
A Nietzschean Imperative Could I want each
minute of my life to happen over and over
again? Eternal Recurrence as The Heaviest
Burden (341) Who can take it?
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Der Ubermensch

• Overman or Superman
• A new Species? Darwinism and Eugenics
• The Strong Poet able to stylize their own Life,
  tell their own Story, Become who they are
• Live Dangerously (283), Overcome Yourself, Defy
  Security (material and spiritual)
• Heroic Individualism

Zarathustra
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Nietzsche and Fascism

• Racism
• Eugenics
• Social Darwinism
• (Anti-) Anti-Semitism
• The Masses vs. the Individual
• Socialism and Community
• Nihilism, Reason and Myth
• The Will to Power
• Eternal Recurrence
• Who needs Enemies when
• they got Family
• Elisabeth Foerster-Nietzsche