Friedrich Nietzsche
Giorgina Paiella
Brief Biography
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German philosopher
Born in Prussian province of Saxony in 1844
Family of many Lutheran ministers
Father died of a brain ailment when he was 5
Two-year-old brother died six months later
Attended university for theology and philology
Gave up Prussian citizenship in 1869- remained stateless;
mostly Germany, Switzerland, and Italy
• Died in 1900 after mental deterioration
Shaping Forces
• Death
• Religion
• War
• Franco-Prussian
• Sickness and physical ailment
• Inspirational figures
• (Schopenhauer and Wagner)
• University studies
• Curiosity about human condition
Arthur
Schopenhauer
Theories
• Criticized religion
• Atheist
• Escape for the weak
• Focused on human behavior
• Power and fear
• Self-control
• Enhancement of the individual
• “Life affirmation”
• World of phenomena
• Senses
• Lack of nationalities
• Europe
• Lack of allegiance and citizenship
• Time as repetition
• Wheel
Major Works and Style
• The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond
Good and Evil, The Antichrist, Will to Power
• Style
• Eloquent
• Passionate
• Many interpretations
• Allusions
• Biblical
• Aphorisms
• “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
Nihilism
• Negation of meaningful aspects of life
• Existential nihilism: lacks meaning, purpose, and value
• Diagnosis of modern society
• "I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one
of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of
humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes
master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!”
• Lack loyalties
• Examined its implications on society
Associations and Contributions
• Nihilism
• Existentialism
• Human experience (subjectivity)
• Individual giving life meaning
• Writers, artists, and thinkers
• Freud, Camus, Hesse, Sartre etc.
• Style
• Aphorisms
• Passion and elaboration
• Interpretations
• Nazism
• Fatalism
• Individual
Quotes
• “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the
correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
• Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they
don't want their illusions destroyed.”
• “Faith: not wanting to know what the truth is.”
• “All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come
only from the senses. “
• “God is dead.”
Relation to Russia and
Crime and Punishment
• Turin horse incident 1889
• Dream scene before committed murder
• Psychology
• Dreams
• Inner conflict
• Morality
• Influenced Russian thought
• Dostoevsky shaped by similar forces
• Physical ailments, suffering, human nature
• Precursor/founder to Existentialism
• Nietzsche interested in him
• Abstracts of several works
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Modern References
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6s_gNgYhHo