Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844—1900) German philosopher, generally ranked with Kant, Immanuel and Frege, Gottlob in terms of his influence. Indeed, French philosopher Foucault, Michel ranks him as equal to Marx, Karl and Freud, Sigmund in terms of his influence on twentieth-century thought. While this claim undoubtedly has merit, it is perhaps difficult to see the justification for it at first glance. It is true that Nietzscheanism isn’t as widely known as either Marxism or psychoanalysis is, yet in many ways it is Nietzsche’s scepticism that opened the way for these other two discursive formation (to use Foucault’s own terms). Adding to the mystery is the fact that Nietzsche was scarcely known in his own lifetime; indeed his books sold so badly he had to pay for them to be privately published. Yet in the twentieth century there was no continental philosopher of note that did not acknowledge Nietzsche’s importance. Nietzsche was born in Röcken, a small town near Leipzig in Germany. His father, a former teacher, was the pastor of the local Lutheran church. Nietzsche had a younger sister and brother as well. His sister is a controversial figure in Nietzsche studies because of the hand she played in distorting Nietzsche’s work by selectively editing his final unfinished manuscript, Der Wille zur Macht (The Will to Power) so as to make it appear utterly anti-Semitic, which would later make it appear amenable to the core ideological values of Nazism. Archival research in the 1960s by two Italian philologists, Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (who were preparing materials for a translation of the complete works of Nietzsche), showed conclusively that Der Wille zur Macht was a fabrication and in a very real sense ‘did not exist’. Nietzsche’s sister cut more than 1500 pages from his text and reordered the paragraphs to substantially alter their meaning. Indeed, the very title was a fiction---Nietzsche himself saw the project as an attempt to revalue all values. Nietzsche’s father died in 1849 necessitating a move to Naumberg, where the family resided with his father’s unmarried sisters. Nietzsche went to seminary school in Naumberg, where he showed aptitude in a range of subjects, including music. In 1864 he commenced theological studies at the University of Bonn, but left after only one semester. He then moved to the University of Leipzig to study philosophy. Before he had completed his studies there he was, quite remarkably, offered a professorship in philosophy at the University of Basel in 1869. At the age of 24 he was and remains one of the youngest scholars to be offered such a post. In 1870 he served for a year as a medical orderly in the Prussian army then returned to his post in Basel, from which he observed the formation of the German State under Bismarck with some distaste. In his early years at Basel he was intimate with the musician Richard Wagner, frequently visiting him and his family at their house on Lake Lucerne. Nietzsche’s first book appeared in 1872, Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, translated as The Birth of Tragedy (1993), but in a pattern that was to be typical of all his books it was treated with suspicion and ultimately disdain. The main problem was its style: Nietzsche eschewed the classical model for the presentation and development of a philosophical argumentation in favour of a more speculative style that offended the sensibilities of his peers. Written in part as defence of Wagner, The Birth of Tragedy was later disavowed by Nietzsche, who felt the binary it constructed between Apollonine and Dionysiac tendencies in art was overly simplistic. His next book, Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (1876), translated as Untimely Meditations (1997), consisted of four essays on German culture, history, Wagner, and Schopenhauer. In his marvellous little portrait, Nietzsche (1994), Michael Tanner recommends that this largely neglected book be read alongside Matthew Arnold’s near contemporary work Culture and Anarchy (1869) as a kind of antidote. His future work would jettison the narrative structure of these essays and aim for something less readily digestible, not aphorisms exactly but something close to that. Nietzsche attended Wagner’s music festival at Bayreuth in 1876 and was so disappointed by its populist atmosphere that he decided to break with Wagner altogether. He responded to this break, which he described as personally shattering, with a prolific outpouring of writing. He wrote almost a book a year for the next decade, including: Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister (1878), translated as Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits (1996); Morgenröte. Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurteile (1881), translated as Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality (1997); and Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882), translated as The Gay Science (1974). This amazing productivity notwithstanding, in 1879 Nietzsche resigned his position at the University of Basel. His health, never strong to begin with, had deteriorated to such an extent that it became impractical to continue working. For the next ten years he led a peripatetic existence shuttling between Germany, Austria and Italy in search of climate conducive to good health and writing. In Turin in January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a psychotic breakdown. Legend has it that he saw a horse being whipped in the Piazza Carlo Alberto and ran towards it to protect it by placing his arms around its neck. He then collapsed to the ground weeping. In the following couple of days he wrote a handful of postcard length letters to close friends---these are known as the Wahnbriefe (Madness Letters) because of their incomprehensible content---after which he never wrote again. The letters were so worrying for the recipients they arranged to bring him back to Basel and have him placed in an asylum. In 1893, his sister Elisabeth, who had been in Patagonia as part of a utopian group attempting to create a new Germany, returned home and took over the care of her brother. She also took control of his unpublished writings and remade them in her own image. It isn’t known exactly what struck Nietzsche down. For a long time it was assumed that syphilis was the cause, but that has lately been brought into question. Although he was anti-religious, his position on religion was complex: he argued that it is better to believe in God than to believe in nothing, but that the belief in God had over time become such an empty gesture it amounted to the same thing as believing in nothing. Nietzsche is sometimes described as a nihilism, but this is a mistake because nihilism was precisely what he was most opposed to. In his philosophy he sought to trans-value or re-value the ‘old’ values so as to avoid the abyss of nihilism. Nietzsche argued that humanity is held back from making this leap because of its attachment to slave morality, or what he referred to as ressentiment, the sense that somehow the world owes the individual something and that is the reason they haven’t been able to get ahead. His answer to the problem is the notion of the eternal return---if we could have life over again, it would have to repeat itself in every detail or it would not be our life, therefore we should live in such a way that if our life was repeated we would be able to embrace it. In other words, we shouldn’t judge life, or seek to enchain it, we should live it to its maximum potential. Further Reading: G. Deleuze Nietzsche and Philosophy (1983). J. Derrida Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles (1979). A. Nehamas Nietzsche: Life as Literature (1985). L. Spinks Friedrich Nietzsche (2003). M. Tanner Nietzsche (1994).
https://fns.org.uk/ • The website of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society, which includes links to resources and discussion boards (subscription).