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Friedrich Nietzsche

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{{redirect|Nietzsche}}
{{short description|German philosopher}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2019}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region = [[Western philosophy]]
| era = [[19th-century philosophy]]
| image = Nietzsche187a.jpg{{!}}border
| caption = Nietzsche in [[Basel]], {{circa}} 1875
| birth_name = {{nowrap|Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche}}
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1844|10|15}}
| birth_place = [[Röcken]], [[Province of Saxony|Saxony]], [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1900|08|25|1844|10|15}}
| death_place = [[Weimar]], [[Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach]], [[German Empire]]
| alma_mater = {{Plainlist}}
* [[University of Bonn]]
* [[Leipzig University]]
{{Endplainlist}}
| institutions = [[University of Basel]]
| nationality = German
| school_tradition = {{Plainlist}}
* [[Anti-foundationalism]]
* [[Anti-consumerism]]
* [[Atheism]]
* [[Continental philosophy]]
* [[German idealism]]<ref>{{cite book|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/idealism/|title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|first1=Paul|last1=Guyer|first2=Rolf-Peter|last2=Horstmann|editor-first=Edward N.|editor-last=Zalta|year=2015|via=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref>
* [[Existentialism]]
* [[Trivialism|Anti-nihilism]]<ref name="HaarNihilism">{{cite book |last1=Haar |first1=Michel |title=The New Nietzsche : contemporary styles of interpretation |date=April 1985 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-51034-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/newnietzschecont00alli/page/6 6] |edition=1st MIT Press paperback |url=https://archive.org/details/newnietzschecont00alli/page/6 |accessdate=29 September 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Dr. Large |title=Nietzsche and Moral Nihilism |url=https://www.arasite.org/WL3/nietnihil.html#_ftnref1 |website=www.arasite.org |accessdate=29 September 2019}}</ref>
* [[Perspectivism]]
* [[Voluntarism (philosophy)|Voluntarism]]
{{Endplainlist}}
| main_interests = {{plainlist}}
* [[Aesthetics]]
* [[Ethics]]
* [[Metaphysics]]
* [[Ontology]]
* [[Philosophy of history]]
* [[Poetry]]
* [[Psychology]]
* [[Tragedy]]
* [[Value theory]]
{{Endflatlist}}
| notable_ideas = {{plainlist}}
* ''{{lang|la|[[Amor fati]]}}''
* [[Apollonian and Dionysian]]
* [[Eternal return]]
* [[Fact–value distinction]]
* [[Genealogy (philosophy)|Genealogy]]
* [[God is dead]]
* [[Herd behavior#Herd behavior in human societies|Herd instinct]]
* [[Last man]]
* [[Master–slave morality]]
* [[Nietzschean affirmation]]
* [[Perspectivism]]
* [[Ressentiment]]
* [[Transvaluation of values]]
* {{lang|de|[[Tschandala]]}}
* ''{{lang|de|[[Übermensch]]}}''
* [[Will to power]]
{{endplainlist}}
| influences = {{Flatlist}}
* [[Arthur Schopenhauer]]
* [[Baruch Spinoza]]
* [[Charles Darwin]]
* [[Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl]]
* [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]]
* [[Johann Gottfried Herder]]<ref>Michael N. Forster. ''After Herder: Philosophy of Language in the German Tradition''. Oxford University Press. 2010. p. 9.</ref>
* [[Johann Joachim Winckelmann]]
* [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]]
* [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]]<ref name=IEP>Dale Wilkerson. [https://www.iep.utm.edu/nietzsch/ "Friedrich Nietzsche"]. ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''. {{ISSN|2161-0002}}. Retrieved 9 April 2018.</ref>
* [[Heraclitus]]
* [[Ludwig Feuerbach]]
* [[Max Stirner]]
* [[Parmenides]]
* [[Philipp Mainländer]]<ref>{{cite book|title=Nietzsche's Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography|last=Brobjer|first=Thomas H.|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0-252-03245-5|location=|page=149 n. 42}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|date=15 March 2003|title=Der Philosoph Philipp Mainländer entdeckt das Nirwanaprinzip: Die Welt als Gottes Selbstmordprojekt|url=https://www.nzz.ch/article8EYCM-1.226141|journal=Neue Zürcher Zeitung|quote=Immerhin hat kein Geringerer als Friedrich Nietzsche, solange er wie Mainländer Schopenhauer verehrte, den philosophischen Mitjünger gewürdigt (beider Lektüreerlebnis gleicht als Erweckung dem augustinischen "Nimm, lies" bis ins Detail).}}</ref>
* [[Julius Bahnsen]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brobjer |first1=Thomas |title=Nietzsche's Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography |publisher=University of Illinois Press, 2008 |pages=39, 48, 55, 140}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Jensen |first1=Anthony |title=Julius Bahnsen's Influence on Nietzsche's Wills-Theory |publisher=Journal of Nietzsche Studies Vol. 47, No. 1 (Spring 2016) |pages=101–118}}</ref>
* [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]]
* [[Richard Wagner]]
* [[Voltaire]]
* the [[French moralists]]
{{Endflatlist}}
| influenced = {{Flatlist}}
* [[Adorno]]
* [[Georges Bataille|Bataille]]
* [[Hermann Broch|Broch]]
* [[Albert Camus|Camus]]
* [[Cioran]]
* [[Deleuze]]
* [[Jacques Derrida|Derrida]]
* [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]]
* [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]
* [[André Gide|Gide]]
* [[Karl Jaspers|Jaspers]]
* [[Heidegger]]
* [[Muhammad Iqbal|Iqbal]]
* [[Jung]]
* [[Franz Kafka|Kafka]]
* [[Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Kaufmann]]
* [[Nick Land|Land]]
* [[Karl Löwith|Löwith]]
* [[Thomas Mann|Mann]]
* [[Mencken]]
* [[Jim Morrison|Morrison]]
* [[Robert Musil|Musil]]
* [[Ayn Rand|Rand]]
* [[Carl Rogers|Rogers]]
* [[Richard Rorty|Rorty]]
* [[Rilke]]
* [[Sartre]]
* [[Lev Shestov|Shestov]]
* [[Oswald Spengler|Spengler]]
* [[Leo Strauss|Strauss]]
* [[Max Weber|Weber]]
* [[Bernard Williams|Williams]]
* [[Postchristianity]]
{{Endflatlist}}
| signature = Friedrich Nietzsche Signature.svg
}}

'''Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|n|iː|tʃ|ə|,_|ˈ|n|iː|tʃ|i}},<ref>{{citation |title=Longman Pronunciation Dictionary |first=John C |last=Wells |authorlink=John C. Wells|publisher=Longman |location=Harlow, UK |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-582-05383-0 |page=478 |contribution=Nietzsche}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |work=[[Dictionary.com]] |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Nietzsche?s=t |title=Nietzsche}}</ref> {{IPA-de|ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtʃə|lang|De-Friedrich Nietzsche.ogg}} <small>or</small> {{IPA-de|- ˈniːtsʃə|}};<ref>''Duden. Das Aussprachewörterbuch.'' 7. Auflage. Bibliographisches Institut, Berlin 2015, {{ISBN|978-3-411-04067-4}}, S. 633 ([https://books.google.de/books?id=T6vWCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA928 online])</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Krech|first1=Eva-Maria|last2=Stock|first2=Eberhard|last3=Hirschfeld|first3=Ursula|last4=Anders|first4=Lutz Christian|title=Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch|trans-title=German Pronunciation Dictionary|language=German|year=2009|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|location=Berlin|isbn=978-3-11-018202-6|pp=520, 777}}</ref><ref>{{citation|last=Wells|first=John C.|year=2008|title=Longman Pronunciation Dictionary|edition= 3rd|publisher=Longman|isbn=978-1-4058-8118-0}}</ref> 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German [[philosopher]], [[cultural critic]], [[composer]], [[poet]], [[Philology|philologist]], and scholar of [[Latin]] and [[Greek language|Greek]] whose work has exerted a profound influence on [[contemporary philosophy|modern intellectual history]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Magnus |date=26 July 1999 |first=Bernd |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/414670/Friedrich-Nietzsche |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |ref=harv }}</ref><ref name="iep.utm.edu">"Friedrich Nietzsche", by Dale Wilkerson, ''The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', {{ISSN|2161-0002}}, http://www.iep.utm.edu/nietzsch/. 14 October 2015.</ref><ref name="Raymond A. Belliotti 2013">Raymond A. Belliotti, ''Jesus or Nietzsche: How Should We Live Our Lives?'' (Rodopi, 2013), 195–201</ref><ref name="Russell 1945 766 & 770">{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |title=A History of Western Philosophy |publisher=Simon and Schuster |location=New York |year=1945 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofwestern00russ/page/766 766, 770] |isbn=978-0-671-20158-6 |oclc= |doi= |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofwestern00russ/page/766 }}</ref><ref name="Friedrich Nietzsche">Wicks, R. (Summer 2011) [http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/nietzsche/ "Friedrich Nietzsche"]. ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved 6 October 2011.</ref> He began his career as a [[classical philology|classical philologist]] before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the [[University of Basel]] in 1869 at the age of 24.<ref name=SEP>{{cite web|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/|title=Friedrich Nietzsche|website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|first= R. Lanier|last=Anderson|date=17 March 2017|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref> Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade.<ref>Brobjer, Thomas. ''Nietzsche's philosophical context: an intellectual biography'', p. 42. University of Illinois Press, 2008.</ref> In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties.{{sfn|Magnus|1999}} He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister [[Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche]]. Nietzsche died in 1900.<ref name=matthews>Robert Matthews (4 May 2003), [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3313279/Madness-of-Nietzsche-was-cancer-not-syphilis.html "'Madness' of Nietzsche was cancer not syphilis"], ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''.</ref>

Nietzsche's writing spans philosophical [[polemic]]s, poetry, [[cultural critic]]ism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for [[aphorism]] and [[irony]].<ref>McKinnon, A.M. (2012). 'Metaphors in and for the Sociology of Religion: Towards a Theory after Nietzsche'. ''[[Journal of Contemporary Religion]]'', vol 27, no. 2, pp. 203–16 [http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3056/1/Nietzsche_religion_metaphor_for_repository.pdf]</ref> Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of [[truth]] in favor of [[perspectivism]]; his [[genealogy (philosophy)|genealogical]] critique of religion and [[Christian morality]] and his related theory of [[master–slave morality]];<ref name="iep.utm.edu" /><ref>See his own words: F. Nietzsche (1888), ''Twilight of the Idols''. "Four Great Errors", 1, tr. W. Kaufmann & R.J. Hollingdale ([http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html online version]). A strict example of a cause-and-effect mismatch, with regard to the God-creator as the cause and our concepts as the effects, is perhaps not fully stressed in this fragment, but the more ''explicit'' it is stressed in the same book, chapter ""Reason" in philosophy", 4, as well as in ''The Antichrist'' (57, where real and imaginary origins are contrasted, and 62, where he calls Christianity 'a fatality'—'fatal' also meaning 'unavoidable') and in ''The Genealogy of Morals'', books 1–3, among others. The topic of "''false'' origins" of ideas is also suggested in ''The Four Great Errors'', 3, and (precisely about morality) in e.g. ''The Will to Power'', tr. W. Kaufmann, 343 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=qylpH4E4enQC&pg=PT272#v=onepage online text here]).</ref> his aesthetic [[Nietzschean affirmation|affirmation]] of existence in response to the "[[God is dead|death of God]]" and the profound crisis of [[nihilism]];<ref name="iep.utm.edu" /> his notion of the [[Apollonian and Dionysian]]; and his characterization of the human [[subject (philosophy)|subject]] as the expression of competing [[will (philosophy)|wills]], collectively understood as the [[will to power]].<ref>K. Gemes, J. Richardson, ''The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche'', Oxford Univ. Press, 2013, pp. 177–78 ("The Duality of Nietzsche's Theory of the Will to Power: The Psychological and Cosmological Aspects"). [https://books.google.com/books?id=yZmJAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA177 Read online here]</ref> He also developed influential concepts such as the ''{{lang|de|[[Übermensch]]}}'' and the doctrine of [[eternal return]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Nietzsche's teaching : an interpretation of Thus spoke Zarathustra|last=1941–|first=Lampert, Laurence|date=1986|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-04430-0|location=New Haven|oclc=13497182}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Friedrich Nietzsche: Herald of a New Era|last=Bowman|first=William|publisher=Hazar Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-9975703-0-4|location=|pages=39–59}}</ref> In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome social, cultural and moral contexts in pursuit of [[transvaluation of values|new values]] and aesthetic health.<ref name="Friedrich Nietzsche" /> His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, religion, [[tragedy]], culture, and science, and drew early inspiration from figures such as philosopher [[Arthur Schopenhauer]],<ref name=IEP /> composer [[Richard Wagner]],<ref name=IEP /> and writer [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]].<ref name=IEP />

After his death, his sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts, reworking his unpublished writings to fit her own [[German nationalism#1871 to World War I, 1914–1918|German nationalist]] ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly [[philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche#Nietzsche's criticism of anti-Semitism and nationalism|opposed to antisemitism and nationalism]]. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with [[fascism]] and [[Nazism]];<ref name="Golomb 2002">Golomb, Jacob and Robert S. Wistrich (eds.), 2002, ''Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?: On the Uses and Abuses of a Philosophy.'' Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.</ref> 20th century scholars contested this interpretation of his work and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th and early-21st century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of [[continental philosophy]] such as [[existentialism]], [[postmodernism]] and [[post-structuralism]]—as well as art, literature, [[psychology]], politics and popular culture.<ref name="Raymond A. Belliotti 2013" /><ref name="Russell 1945 766 & 770" /><ref name="Friedrich Nietzsche" /><ref>Marianne Constable, "Genealogy and Jurisprudence: Nietzsche, Nihilism, and the Social Scientification of Law", ''Law & Social Inquiry ''19, no. 3 (1 July 1994): 551–90.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.stanford.edu/pr/01/nietzsche66.html|title=100 years after death, Nietzsche's popularity keeps growing: 6/01|website=news.stanford.edu}}</ref>

== Life ==

=== Youth (1844–1868) ===
{{anchor|youth}}

Born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the small town of [[Röcken]] (now part of [[Lützen]]), near [[Leipzig]], in the [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussian]] [[Province of Saxony]]. He was named after King [[Frederick William IV of Prussia|Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia]], who turned 49 on the day of Nietzsche's birth (Nietzsche later dropped his middle name Wilhelm).{{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=22}} Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–1849), a [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] pastor and former teacher; and {{interlanguage link|Franziska Nietzsche|de|Franziska Oehler}} (''née'' Oehler) (1826–1897), married in 1843, the year before their son's birth. They had two other children: a daughter, [[Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche]], born in 1846; and a second son, Ludwig Joseph, born in 1848. Nietzsche's father died from a brain ailment in 1849; Ludwig Joseph died six months later at age two.<ref name="Wicks">{{cite book |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/nietzsche/ |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |last=Wicks |first=Robert |year=2014 |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition= Winter 2014}}</ref> The family then moved to [[Naumburg]], where they lived with Nietzsche's maternal grandmother and his father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now [[Nietzsche-Haus, Naumburg|Nietzsche-Haus]], a museum and Nietzsche study centre.
[[File:Nietzsche1861.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Nietzsche, 1861]]

Nietzsche attended a boys' school and then a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug, [[Rudolf Wagner]] and Wilhelm Pinder, all three of whom came from highly respected families. Academic records from one of the schools attended by Nietzsche noted that he excelled in Christian theology.<ref name="Human, All Too Human, BBC Documentary, 1999">{{cite web |title=Human, All Too Human, BBC Documentary, 1999. |url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/human-all-too-human-bbc-documentary-1999 |website=Columbia College |publisher=Columbia College |accessdate=16 October 2019}}</ref>{{better source|reason=may be unavailable and/or a breach of BBC copyright|date=October 2019}}

In 1854, he began to attend Domgymnasium in Naumburg. Because his father had worked for the state (as a pastor) the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognized [[Pforta|Schulpforta]] (the claim that Nietzsche was admitted on the strength of his academic competence has been debunked: his grades were nowhere near the top of the class).<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Brobjer|first1=Thomas H.|title=Why Did Nietzsche Receive a Scholarship to Study at Schulpforta?|journal=Nietzsche-Studien|volume=30|pages=322–27}}</ref> He transferred and studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with [[Paul Deussen]] and Carl von Gersdorff. He also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led "Germania", a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg.<ref name="Wicks" /> At [[Schulpforta]], Nietzsche received an important grounding in languages—[[Greek language|Greek]], [[Latin]], [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], and [[French language|French]]—so as to be able to read important [[primary source]]s;<ref>Krell, David Farrell, and Donald L. Bates. ''The Good European: Nietzsche's work sites in word and image''. University of Chicago Press, 1997.</ref> he also experienced for the first time being away from his family life in a small-town conservative environment. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 showed a 1{{nbsp}}in Religion and German; a 2a in Greek and Latin; a 2b in French, History, and Physics; and a "lackluster" 3{{nbsp}}in Hebrew and Mathematics.{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=37}}

While at [[Pforta]], Nietzsche had a penchant for pursuing subjects that were considered unbecoming. He became acquainted with the work of the then almost-unknown poet [[Friedrich Hölderlin]], calling him "my favorite poet" and composing an essay in which he said that the mad poet raised consciousness to "the most sublime ideality".<ref>Hayman, Ronald. ''Nietzsche: A Critical Life'', p. 42. Oxford University Press, 1980.</ref> The teacher who corrected the essay gave it a good mark but commented that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more lucid, and more "German" writers. Additionally, he became acquainted with [[Ernst Ortlepp]], an eccentric, blasphemous, and often drunken poet who was found dead in a ditch weeks after meeting the young Nietzsche but who may have introduced Nietzsche to the music and writing of [[Richard Wagner]].<ref>Kohler, Joachim. ''Nietzsche & Wagner: A Lesson in Subjugation'', p. 17. Yale University Press, 1998.</ref> Perhaps under Ortlepp's influence, he and a student named Richter returned to school drunk and encountered a teacher, resulting in Nietzsche's demotion from first in his class and the end of his status as a [[School prefect|prefect]].{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=21}}
[[File:Nietzsche-21.jpg|thumb|upright|Young Nietzsche]]

After graduation in September 1864,<ref>His "valedictorian paper" (''Valediktionsarbeit'', graduation thesis for Pforta students) was titled "On [[Theognis of Megara]]" ("''De Theognide Megarensi''"); see Anthony K. Jensen, Helmut Heit (eds.), ''Nietzsche as a Scholar of Antiquity'', A&C Black, 2014, p. 4.</ref> Nietzsche commenced studies in theology and classical philology at the [[University of Bonn]] with hope of becoming a minister. For a short time he and Deussen became members of the [[Burschenschaft]] ''[[Franconia|Frankonia]]''. After one semester (and to the anger of his mother), he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith.<ref name=Schaberg>{{Citation |last=Schaberg |first=William |title=The Nietzsche Canon |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1996 |page=32}}</ref> As early as his 1862 essay "Fate and History", Nietzsche had argued that historical research had discredited the central teachings of Christianity,<ref>{{Citation |first=Jörg |last=Salaquarda |contribution=Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian tradition |title=The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche |place=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1996 |page=99}}</ref> but [[David Strauss]]'s ''[[David Strauss#Das Leben Jesu|Life of Jesus]]'' also seems to have had a profound effect on the young man.<ref name=Schaberg /> In addition, [[Ludwig Feuerbach]]'s ''[[The Essence of Christianity]]'' influenced young Nietzsche with its argument that people created God, and not the other way around.<ref name=Higgins>{{Citation |last=Higgins |first=Kathleen |title=What Nietzsche Really Said|publisher=Random House, NY |year=2000|page=86}}</ref> In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith. This letter contains the following statement:
<blockquote>Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire{{nbsp}}...<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://babbledom.com/2011/02/17/intermission/ |title=Nietzsche, Letter to His Sister (1865) |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121124011911/http://babbledom.com/2011/02/17/intermission/ |archivedate=24 November 2012 |df=dmy-all }}</ref></blockquote>
[[File:Frankfurt Am Main-Portraits-Arthur Schopenhauer-1845.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Arthur Schopenhauer]] strongly influenced Nietzsche's philosophical thought.]]

Nietzsche subsequently concentrated on studying philology under Professor [[Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl]], whom he followed to the [[University of Leipzig]] in 1865.{{sfn|Magnus|1999}} There, he became close friends with his fellow student [[Erwin Rohde]]. Nietzsche's first philological publications appeared soon after.

In 1865, Nietzsche thoroughly studied the works of [[Arthur Schopenhauer]]. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Schopenhauer's ''[[The World as Will and Representation]]'' and later admitted that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers whom he respected, dedicating the essay "[[s:Schopenhauer as Educator|Schopenhauer as Educator]]" in the ''[[Untimely Meditations]]'' to him.

In 1866, he read [[Friedrich Albert Lange]]'s ''[[History of Materialism and Critique of its Present Importance|History of Materialism]]''. Lange's descriptions of [[Kant]]'s anti-materialistic philosophy, the rise of European [[Materialism]], Europe's increased concern with science, [[Charles Darwin]]'s theory of [[evolution]], and the general rebellion against tradition and authority intrigued Nietzsche greatly. Nietzsche would ultimately argue the impossibility of an evolutionary explanation of the human aesthetic sense.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pence |first=Charles H. |title=Nietzsche's aesthetic critique of Darwin |journal=History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=165–90 |year=2011 |pmid=22288334 |url=https://www.academia.edu/759427}}</ref>

In 1867, Nietzsche signed up for one year of voluntary service with the Prussian artillery division in Naumburg. He was regarded as one of the finest riders among his fellow recruits, and his officers predicted that he would soon reach the rank of captain. However, in March 1868, while jumping into the saddle of his horse, Nietzsche struck his chest against the [[Saddle|pommel]] and tore two muscles in his left side, leaving him exhausted and unable to walk for months.<ref>Hayman, Ronald. ''Nietzsche: A Critical Life'', p. 93. Oxford University Press (New York), 1980.</ref><ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. [[s:Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche#To Freiherr Karl Von Gersdorff – June, 1868|Letter to Karl Von Gersdorff]], June 1868.</ref> Consequently, Nietzsche turned his attention to his studies again, completing them in 1868 and meeting with [[Richard Wagner]] for the first time later that year.<ref>{{Citation |url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_Letters_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche#To_Rohde_-_October.2C_1868 |title=Letter to Rohde |date=November 1868 |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich}}</ref>

=== Professor at Basel (1869–1878) ===
{{anchor|Professor at Basel|Basel}}
[[File:Rohde Gersdorff Nietzsche.JPG|thumb|upright|Left to right: [[Erwin Rohde]], Karl von Gersdorff and Nietzsche, October 1871]]

In part because of Ritschl's support, Nietzsche received a remarkable offer in 1869 to become professor of [[classical philology]] at the [[University of Basel]] in Switzerland. He was only 24 years old and had neither completed his doctorate nor received a teaching certificate ("[[habilitation]]"). He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the [[Leipzig University|University of Leipzig]], again with Ritschl's support.<ref>Anthony K. Jensen, Helmut Heit (eds.), ''Nietzsche as a Scholar of Antiquity'', A&C Black, 2014, p. 129.</ref>

Despite the fact that the offer came at a time when he was considering giving up philology for science, he accepted.{{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=25}} To this day, Nietzsche is still among the youngest of the tenured Classics professors on record.<ref>{{Citation |first=Paul |last=Bishop |title=Nietzsche and Antiquity |year=2004 |page=117}}</ref>

Nietzsche's 1870 projected [[doctoral thesis]], ''Contribution toward the Study and the Critique of the Sources of Diogenes Laertius'' (''Beiträge zur Quellenkunde und Kritik des Laertius Diogenes''), examined the origins of the ideas of [[Diogenes Laërtius]].<ref>Anthony K. Jensen, Helmut Heit (eds.), ''Nietzsche as a Scholar of Antiquity'', A&C Black, 2014, p. 115.</ref> Though never submitted, it was later published as a ''Gratulationsschrift'' (congratulatory publication) at [[Basel]].<ref>George E. McCarthy, [http://personal.kenyon.edu/mccarthy/Book1.htm ''Dialectics and Decadence'']</ref><ref>Between 1868 and 1870, he published two other studies on Diogenes Laertius: ''De Fontibus Diogenis Laertii'' ("On the Sources of Diogenes Laertius"; Part I: 1868, Part II: 1869) and ''Analecta Laertiana'' (1870); see Jensen and Heit (eds.), 2014, p. 115.</ref>

Before moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship: for the rest of his life he remained officially [[Stateless person|stateless]].<ref>Hecker, Hellmuth: "Nietzsches Staatsangehörigkeit als Rechtsfrage", ''Neue Juristische Wochenschrift'', Jg. 40, 1987, nr. 23, pp. 1388–91.</ref><ref>His, Eduard: "Friedrich Nietzsches Heimatlosigkeit", ''Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde'', vol. 40, 1941, pp. 159–86. Note that some authors (among them Deussen and [[Mazzino Montinari|Montinari]]) mistakenly claim that Nietzsche became a Swiss citizen.</ref>

Nevertheless, Nietzsche served in the Prussian forces during the [[Franco-Prussian War]] (1870–1871) as a medical [[orderly]]. In his short time in the military, he experienced much and witnessed the traumatic effects of battle. He also contracted [[diphtheria]] and [[dysentery]].{{citation needed|date=August 2013}} [[Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Walter Kaufmann]] speculates that he might also have contracted [[syphilis]] at a brothel along with his other infections at this time.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Sax|first1=L.|title=What was the cause of Nietzsche's dementia?|journal=[[Journal of Medical Biography]]|volume=11|issue=1|pages=47–54|year=2003|pmid=12522502|doi=10.1177/096777200301100113|url=https://semanticscholar.org/paper/9a591ffb8bec542f6e7c5ffafa396a4358c48cad}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |first=Richard |last=Schain |title=The Legend of Nietzsche's Syphilis |place=Westwood |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=2001}}{{full citation needed|date=November 2012}}</ref> On returning to Basel in 1870, Nietzsche observed the establishment of the [[German Empire]] and [[Otto von Bismarck]]'s subsequent policies as an outsider and with a degree of skepticism regarding their genuineness. His inaugural lecture at the university was "[[s:Homer and Classical Philology|Homer and Classical Philology]]". Nietzsche also met [[Franz Overbeck]], a professor of theology who remained his friend throughout his life. [[Afrikan Spir]], a little-known Russian philosopher responsible for the 1873 ''Thought and Reality'', and Nietzsche's colleague the famed historian [[Jacob Burckhardt]], whose lectures Nietzsche frequently attended, began to exercise significant influence on him during this time.<ref>Green, M.S. ''Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition''. University of Illinois Press, 2002.{{full citation needed|date=November 2012}}</ref>

Nietzsche had already met [[Richard Wagner]] in Leipzig in 1868 and later Wagner's wife, [[Cosima Wagner|Cosima]]. Nietzsche admired both greatly and during his time at Basel frequently visited Wagner's house in [[Tribschen]] in [[Canton of Lucerne|Lucerne]]. The Wagners brought Nietzsche into their most intimate circle—including [[Franz Liszt]], of whom Nietzsche colloquially described: "Liszt or the art of running after women!".<ref>[[Rupert Hughes]], [http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/11419/1.html#gsc.tab=0 ''The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2''].</ref> Nietzsche enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of the [[Bayreuth Festspielhaus|Bayreuth Festival]]. In 1870, he gave Cosima Wagner the manuscript of "The Genesis of the Tragic Idea" as a birthday gift. In 1872, Nietzsche published his first book, ''[[The Birth of Tragedy]]''. However, his colleagues within his field, including Ritschl, expressed little enthusiasm for the work in which Nietzsche eschewed the classical philologic method in favor of a more speculative approach. In his [[polemic]] ''Philology of the Future'', [[Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff]] damped the book's reception and increased its notoriety. In response, Rohde (then a professor in [[Kiel]]) and Wagner came to Nietzsche's defense. Nietzsche remarked freely about the isolation he felt within the philological community and attempted unsuccessfully to transfer to a position in philosophy at Basel instead.
[[File:Friedrich Nietzsche-1872.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Nietzsche, c. 1872]]

In 1873, Nietzsche began to accumulate notes that would be posthumously published as ''[[Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks]]''. Between 1873 and 1876, he published four separate long essays: "[[David Strauss]]: the Confessor and the Writer", "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life", "Schopenhauer as Educator" and "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth". These four later appeared in a collected edition under the title ''[[Untimely Meditations]]''. The essays shared the orientation of a cultural critique, challenging the developing German culture along lines suggested by Schopenhauer and Wagner. During this time in the circle of the Wagners, he met [[Malwida von Meysenbug]] and [[Hans von Bülow]]. He also began a friendship with [[Paul Rée]], who in 1876 influenced him into dismissing the pessimism in his early writings. However, he was deeply disappointed by the [[Bayreuth Festival]] of 1876, where the banality of the shows and baseness of the public repelled him. He was also alienated by Wagner's championing of "German culture", which Nietzsche felt a contradiction in terms as well as by Wagner's celebration of his fame among the German public. All this contributed to his subsequent decision to distance himself from Wagner.

With the publication in 1878 of ''[[Human, All Too Human]]'' (a book of [[aphorism]]s ranging from metaphysics to morality to religion), a new style of Nietzsche's work became clear, highly influenced by [[Afrikan Spir]]'s ''Thought and Reality''<ref>Safranski, Rüdiger (trans. Shelley Frisch). ''Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography'', p. 161. W.W. Norton & Company, 2003. "This work had long been consigned to oblivion, but it had a lasting impact on Nietzsche. Section 18 of ''Human, All Too Human'' cited Spir, not by name, but by presenting a 'proposition by an outstanding logician' (2,38; HH I § 18)."</ref> and reacting against the pessimistic philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer. Nietzsche's friendship with Deussen and Rohde cooled as well. In 1879, after a significant decline in health, Nietzsche had to resign his position at Basel. Since his childhood, various disruptive illnesses had plagued him, including moments of shortsightedness that left him nearly blind, [[migraine]] headaches, and violent indigestion. The 1868 riding accident and diseases in 1870 may have aggravated these persistent conditions, which continued to affect him through his years at Basel, forcing him to take longer and longer holidays until regular work became impractical.

=== Independent philosopher (1879–1888) ===
{{anchor|independent philosopher|philosopher}}
[[File:Nietzsche paul-ree lou-von-salome188.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Lou Andreas-Salomé|Lou Salomé]], [[Paul Rée]] and Nietzsche traveled through Italy in 1882, planning to establish an educational commune together, but the friendship disintegrated in late 1882 due to complications from Rée's and Nietzsche's mutual romantic interest in Salomé.]]

Living off his pension from Basel and aid from friends, Nietzsche travelled frequently to find climates more conducive to his health and lived until 1889 as an independent author in different cities. He spent many summers in [[Sils im Engadin/Segl|Sils Maria]] near [[St. Moritz]] in Switzerland. He spent his winters in the Italian cities of [[Genoa]], [[Rapallo]], and [[Turin]] and the French city of [[Nice]]. In 1881, when [[French conquest of Tunisia|France occupied Tunisia]], he planned to travel to [[Tunis]] to view Europe from the outside but later abandoned that idea, probably for health reasons.<ref>{{Citation|first=Stephan |last=Güntzel |url=http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=sgunzel-4 |title=Nietzsche's Geophilosophy |page=85 |journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies |volume=25 |place=University Park (Penn State) |date=15 October 2003 |language=English, German |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927184745/http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=sgunzel-4 |archivedate=27 September 2007 |df= }}; republished on HyperNietzsche.</ref> Nietzsche occasionally returned to Naumburg to visit his family, and, especially during this time, he and [[Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche|his sister]] had repeated periods of conflict and reconciliation.

While in [[Genoa]], Nietzsche's failing eyesight prompted him to explore the use of [[typewriter]]s as a means of continuing to write. He is known to have tried using the [[Hansen Writing Ball#Sale and popular use|Hansen Writing Ball]], a contemporary typewriter device. In the end, a past student of his, [[Heinrich Köselitz]] or [[Heinrich Köselitz|Peter Gast]], became a sort of private secretary to Nietzsche. In 1876, Gast transcribed the crabbed, nearly illegible handwriting of Nietzsche for the first time with Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=221}} He subsequently transcribed and proofread the galleys for almost all of Nietzsche's work from then on. On at least one occasion on 23 February 1880, the usually poor Gast received 200 marks from their mutual friend, Paul Rée.{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=297}} Gast was one of the very few friends Nietzsche allowed to criticize him. In responding most enthusiastically to ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra|Also sprach Zarathustra]]'' (''Thus Spoke Zarathustra''), Gast did feel it necessary to point out that what were described as "superfluous" people were in fact quite necessary. He went on to list the number of people [[Epicurus]], for example, had to rely on even to supply his simple diet of goat cheese.{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=415}}

To the end of his life, Gast and Overbeck remained consistently faithful friends. [[Malwida von Meysenbug]] remained like a motherly patron even outside the Wagner circle. Soon Nietzsche made contact with the music-critic [[Carl Fuchs]]. Nietzsche stood at the beginning of his most productive period. Beginning with ''[[Human, All Too Human]]'' in 1878, Nietzsche published one book or major section of a book each year until 1888, his last year of writing; that year, he completed five.

In 1882, Nietzsche published the first part of ''[[The Gay Science]]''. That year he also met [[Lou Andreas-Salomé]],<ref>{{Citation |url=http://www.f-nietzsche.de/lou_e.htm |contribution=Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé |title=F Nietzsche |place=DE}}</ref> through Malwida von Meysenbug and [[Paul Rée]].

Salomé's mother took her to Rome when Salomé was 21. At a literary salon in the city, Salomé became acquainted with [[Paul Rée]]. Rée proposed marriage to her, but she instead proposed that they should live and study together as "brother and sister", along with another man for company, where they would establish an academic commune.{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=149}} Rée accepted the idea, and suggested that they be joined by his friend Nietzsche. The two met Nietzsche in Rome in April 1882, and Nietzsche is believed to have instantly fallen in love with Salome, as Rée had done. Nietzsche asked Rée to propose marriage to Salome, which she rejected. She had been interested in Nietzsche as a friend, but not as a husband.{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=149}} Nietzsche nonetheless was content to join together with Rée and Salome touring through Switzerland and Italy together, planning their commune. The three traveled with Salomé's mother through Italy and considered where they would set up their "Winterplan" commune. This commune was intended to be set up in an abandoned monastery, but no suitable location was found. On 13 May, in Lucerne, when Nietzsche was alone with Salome, he earnestly proposed marriage to her again, which she rejected. He nonetheless was happy to continue with the plans for an academic commune.{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=149}} After discovering the situation, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became determined to get Nietzsche away from the "immoral woman".{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=151}}
Nietzsche and Salomé spent the summer together in [[Tautenburg]] in Thuringia, often with Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth as a chaperone. Salomé reports that he asked her to marry him on three separate occasions and that she refused, though the reliability of her reports of events has come into question.{{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=49}} Arriving in [[Leipzig]], (Germany) in October, Salomé and Rée separated from Nietzsche after a falling-out between Nietzsche and Salomé, in which Salomé believed that Nietzsche was desperately in love with her.

While the three spent a number of weeks together in Leipzig in October 1882, the following month Rée and Salome ditched Nietzsche, leaving for Stibbe (today [[Zdbowo]]<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/?id=JkoK_108xJkC&lpg=PT223&dq=Stibbe+Zdbowo+Nietzsche&pg=PT223#v=onepage&q=Stibbe%20Zdbowo%20Nietzsche&f=false|title=Plett – Schmidseder|last=Killy|first=Walther|last2=Vierhaus|first2=Rudolf|date=30 November 2011|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-096630-5|language=en}}</ref> in Poland) without any plans to meet again. Nietzsche soon fell into a period of mental anguish, although he continued to write to Rée, stating "We shall see one another from time to time, won't we?"{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=152}} In later recriminations, Nietzsche would blame on separate occasions the failure in his attempts to woo Salome both on Salome, Rée, and on the intrigues of his sister (who had written letters to the family of Salome and Rée to disrupt the plans for the commune). Nietzsche wrote of the affair in 1883, that he now felt "genuine hatred for my sister".{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=152}}

Amidst renewed bouts of illness, living in near-isolation after a falling out with his mother and sister regarding Salomé, Nietzsche fled to Rapallo, where he wrote the first part of ''Also sprach Zarathustra'' in only ten days.
[[File:Nietzsche1882.jpg|thumb|upright|Photo of Nietzsche by {{interlanguage link|Gustav Adolf Schultze|de}}, 1882]]

By 1882, Nietzsche was taking huge doses of [[opium]], but he was still having trouble sleeping.{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=389}} In 1883, while staying in Nice, he was writing out his own prescriptions for the sedative [[chloral hydrate]], signing them "Dr. Nietzsche".{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=453}}

After severing his philosophical ties with [[Schopenhauer]] (who was long dead and never met Nietzsche) and his social ties with Wagner, Nietzsche had few remaining friends. Now, with the new style of ''Zarathustra'', his work became even more alienating, and the market received it only to the degree required by politeness. Nietzsche recognized this and maintained his solitude, though he often complained about it. His books remained largely unsold. In 1885, he printed only 40 copies of the fourth part of ''Zarathustra'' and distributed only a fraction of these among close friends, including [[Helene von Druskowitz]].

In 1883, he tried and failed to obtain a lecturing post at the [[University of Leipzig]]. It was made clear to him that, in view of his attitude towards Christianity and his concept of God, he had become effectively unemployable by any German university. The subsequent "feelings of revenge and resentment" embittered him: "And hence my rage since I have grasped in the broadest possible sense what wretched means (the depreciation of my good name, my character, and my aims) ''suffice'' to take from me the trust of, and therewith the possibility of obtaining, pupils."<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. [[s:Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche#Nietzsche To Peter Gast – August 1883 2|Letter to Peter Gast]]. August 1883.</ref>

In 1886, Nietzsche broke with his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner, disgusted by his antisemitic opinions. Nietzsche saw his own writings as "completely buried and unexhumeable in this anti-Semitic dump" of Schmeitzner—associating the publisher with a movement that should be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/correspondence/corresp.htm#schmei |title=Correspondences |publisher=Thenietzschechannel.com |date=1 February 2000 |accessdate=27 November 2013}}</ref> He then printed ''[[Beyond Good and Evil]]'' at his own expense. He also acquired the publication rights for his earlier works and over the next year issued second editions of ''The Birth of Tragedy'', ''[[Human, All Too Human]]'', ''[[The Dawn (book)|Daybreak]]'', and ''[[The Gay Science]]'' with new prefaces placing the body of his work in a more coherent perspective. Thereafter, he saw his work as completed for a time and hoped that soon a readership would develop. In fact, interest in Nietzsche's thought did increase at this time, if rather slowly and hardly perceptibly to him. During these years Nietzsche met [[Meta von Salis]], [[Carl Spitteler]], and [[Gottfried Keller]].

In 1886, his sister Elisabeth married the [[Antisemitism|antisemite]] [[Bernhard Förster]] and travelled to Paraguay to found [[Nueva Germania]], a "Germanic" colony—a plan Nietzsche responded to with mocking laughter.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|title= |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |edition= online |contribution=Förster-Nietzsche, Elisabeth |url=http://www.search.eb.com.librarypx.lclark.edu/eb/article-9034925 |date=10 October 2008 }}{{dead link|date=June 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>{{failed verification|date=October 2015}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ticotimes.net/2016/02/27/the-lost-aryan-utopia-of-nueva-germania|title=The lost 'Aryan utopia' of Nueva Germania|last=van Eerten|first=Jurriaan|date=27 February 2016|website=The Tico Times Costa Rica|language=en-US|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-09-29}}</ref> Through correspondence, Nietzsche's relationship with Elisabeth continued through cycles of conflict and reconciliation, but they met again only after his collapse. He continued to have frequent and painful attacks of illness, which made prolonged work impossible.

In 1887, Nietzsche wrote the polemic ''[[On the Genealogy of Morality]]''. During the same year, he encountered the work of [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]], to whom he felt an immediate kinship.<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. [[s:Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche#Nietzsche To Peter Gast – March, 1887|Letter to Peter Gast]]. March 1887.</ref> He also exchanged letters with [[Hippolyte Taine]] and [[Georg Brandes]]. Brandes, who had started to teach the philosophy of [[Søren Kierkegaard]] in the 1870s, wrote to Nietzsche asking him to [[Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche|read Kierkegaard]], to which Nietzsche replied that he would come to [[Copenhagen]] and read Kierkegaard with him. However, before fulfilling this promise, he slipped too far into illness. In the beginning of 1888, Brandes delivered in Copenhagen one of the first lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy.

Although Nietzsche had previously announced at the end of ''[[On the Genealogy of Morality]]'' a new work with the title ''[[The Will to Power (manuscript)|The Will to Power]]: Attempt at a [[transvaluation of values|Revaluation of All Values]]'', he eventually seems to have abandoned this idea and instead used some of the draft passages to compose ''[[Twilight of the Idols]]'' and ''[[The Antichrist (book)|The Antichrist]]'' in 1888.<ref>{{Citation |first=Mazzino |last=Montinari |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |year=1974}} translated as {{Citation |language=German |year=1991 |title=Friedrich Nietzsche. Eine Einführung |place=Berlin-New York |publisher=De Gruyter}}; and {{Citation |language=French |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |publisher=[[PUF]] |year=2001}}</ref>

His health seemed to improve and he spent the summer in high spirits. In the fall of 1888, his writings and letters began to reveal a higher estimation of his own status and "fate". He overestimated the increasing response to his writings, however, especially to the recent polemic, ''[[The Case of Wagner]]''. On his 44th birthday, after completing ''[[Twilight of the Idols]]'' and ''[[The Antichrist (book)|The Antichrist]]'', he decided to write the autobiography ''[[Ecce Homo (book)|Ecce Homo]]''. In its preface—which suggests Nietzsche was well aware of the interpretive difficulties his work would generate—he declares, "Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else."{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888d |loc=Preface, section 1}} In December, Nietzsche began a correspondence with [[August Strindberg]] and thought that, short of an international breakthrough, he would attempt to buy back his older writings from the publisher and have them translated into other European languages. Moreover, he planned the publication of the compilation ''[[Nietzsche contra Wagner]]'' and of the poems that made up his collection ''[[Dionysian-Dithyrambs]]''.

=== Mental illness and death (1889–1900) ===
{{anchor|mental breakdown and death|breakdown|death}}
[[File:Friedrich Nietzsche drawn by Hans Olde.jpg|thumb|upright|Drawing by [[Hans Olde]] from the photographic series, ''The Ill Nietzsche'', late 1899]]
[[File:NietzscheHouseTurin.jpg|thumb|left|[[Turin]] house where Nietzsche stayed (background) seen from Piazza Carlo Alberto, where he is said to have had his breakdown (at left: rear façade of [[Palazzo Carignano]])]]

On 3 January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a [[mental breakdown]].<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Magnus|editor1-first=Bernd|editor2-last=Higgins|editor2-first=Kathleen Marie|title=The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche|date=1996|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-36767-7|pages=79–81|url=https://books.google.com/?id=Xeb80itrlRIC|language=en}}</ref> Two policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the streets of [[Turin]]. What happened remains unknown, but an often-repeated tale from shortly after his death states that Nietzsche witnessed the flogging of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms around its neck to protect it, then collapsed to the ground.{{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=67}}<ref>Anacleto Verrecchia, "Nietzsche's Breakdown in Turin", in ''Nietzsche in Italy'', ed. Thomas Harrison (Stanford University: ANMA Libri, 1988) 105–12</ref>

In the following few days, Nietzsche sent short writings—known as the ''Wahnzettel'' ("Madness Letters")—to a number of friends including [[Cosima Wagner]] and [[Jacob Burckhardt]]. Most of them were signed "[[Dionysus]]", though some were also signed "der Gekreuzigte" meaning "the crucified one". To his former colleague Burckhardt, Nietzsche wrote: "I have had [[Caiaphas]] put in [[fetters]]. Also, last year I was crucified by the German doctors in a very drawn-out manner. [[Wilhelm II, German Emperor|Wilhelm]], [[Otto von Bismarck|Bismarck]], and all anti-Semites abolished."<ref>{{cite web |last=Simon |first=Gerald |url=http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/correspondence/ger/nilettersg.htm |publisher=The Nietzsche Channel |title=Nietzsches Briefe. Ausgewählte Korrespondenz. Wahnbriefe. |accessdate=24 August 2013 |date=January 1889 |quote=Ich habe Kaiphas in Ketten legen lassen; auch bin ich voriges Jahr von den deutschen Ärzten auf eine sehr langwierige Weise gekreuzigt worden. Wilhelm, Bismarck und alle Antisemiten abgeschafft.}}</ref> Additionally, he commanded the German emperor to go to Rome to be shot and summoned the European powers to take military action against Germany,<ref>[[Stefan Zweig|Zweig, Stefan]] (1939), ''Master Builders [trilogy], The Struggle with the Daimon", Viking Press, p. 524.</ref> that the pope should be put in jail and that he, Nietzsche, created the world and was in the process of having all anti-Semites shot dead.<ref>[http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/correspondence/ger/nlett1889g.htm Nietzsches Briefe, Ausgewählte Korrespondenz, Wahnzettel 1889].</ref>

On 6 January 1889, Burckhardt showed the letter he had received from Nietzsche to Overbeck. The following day, Overbeck received a similar letter and decided that Nietzsche's friends had to bring him back to Basel. Overbeck traveled to Turin and brought Nietzsche to a psychiatric clinic in Basel. By that time Nietzsche appeared fully in the grip of a serious mental illness,<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/1889.html|title=Nietzsche Chronicle: 1889|website=www.dartmouth.edu|access-date=2019-09-28}}</ref> and his mother Franziska decided to transfer him to a clinic in [[Jena]] under the direction of [[Otto Binswanger]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography|last=Safranski|first=Rüdiger|publisher=W. W. Norton|year=2003|isbn=0-393-05008-4|location=New York, New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00safr_0/page/371 371]|url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00safr_0/page/371}}</ref> In January 1889, they proceeded with the planned release of ''[[Twilight of the Idols]]'', by that time already printed and bound. From November 1889 to February 1890, the art historian [[Julius Langbehn]] attempted to cure Nietzsche, claiming that the methods of the medical doctors were ineffective in treating Nietzsche's condition.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://arthistorians.info/langbehnj|title=Langbehn, Julius|last=admin|date=2018-02-21|website=Stern, Fritz. "Julius Langbehn and Germanic Irrationalism", in The Politics of Cultural Despair. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974, pp. 97-204; Sheehan, James J. Museums in the German Art World: From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 142-43; Kultermann, Udo. The History of Art History. New York: Abaris, 1993, pp. 131-2.|language=en|access-date=2019-09-29}}</ref> Langbehn assumed progressively greater control of Nietzsche until his secretiveness discredited him. In March 1890, Franziska removed Nietzsche from the clinic and, in May 1890, brought him to her home in Naumburg.<ref name=":1" /> During this process Overbeck and Gast contemplated what to do with Nietzsche's unpublished works. In February, they ordered a fifty-copy private edition of ''[[Nietzsche contra Wagner]]'', but the publisher [[C.G. Naumann]] secretly printed one hundred. Overbeck and Gast decided to withhold publishing ''The Antichrist'' and ''[[Ecce Homo (book)|Ecce Homo]]'' because of their more radical content.<ref name=":1" /> Nietzsche's reception and recognition enjoyed their first surge.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography|last=Safranski|first=Rüdiger|publisher=W. W. Norton|year=2003|isbn=0-393-05008-4|location=|pages=[https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00safr_0/page/317 317–350]|url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00safr_0/page/317}}</ref>

In 1893, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth returned from [[Nueva Germania]] in Paraguay following the suicide of her husband. She read and studied Nietzsche's works and, piece by piece, took control of them and their publication. Overbeck eventually suffered dismissal and Gast finally co-operated. After the death of Franziska in 1897, Nietzsche lived in [[Weimar]], where Elisabeth cared for him and allowed visitors, including [[Rudolf Steiner]] (who in 1895 had written ''Friedrich Nietzsche: a Fighter Against His Time,'' one of the first books praising Nietzsche),<ref>{{Citation |first=Rudolf |last=Steiner |title=Friedrich Nietzsche, ein Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit |place=Weimar |year=1895}}</ref> to meet her uncommunicative brother. Elisabeth at one point went so far as to employ Steiner as a tutor to help her to understand her brother's philosophy. Steiner abandoned the attempt after only a few months, declaring that it was impossible to teach her anything about philosophy.<ref>{{Citation |first=Andrew |last=Bailey |title=First Philosophy: Fundamental Problems and Readings in Philosophy |publisher=Broadview Press |year=2002 |page=704}}</ref>
[[File:Eh-dm-27.JPG|thumb|[[Heinrich Köselitz|Peter Gast]] "corrected" Nietzsche's writings after the breakdown without his approval]]

Nietzsche's mental illness was originally diagnosed as [[tertiary syphilis]], in accordance with a prevailing medical paradigm of the time. Although most commentators regard his breakdown as unrelated to his philosophy, [[Georges Bataille]] dropped dark hints ("'Man incarnate' must also go mad")<ref name=Bataille>{{Cite Journal|last1= Bataille|first1= Georges |last2= Michelson|first2= Annette |title=Nietzsche's Madness|journal=[[October (journal)|October]] |volume = 36|date = Spring 1986|pages = 42–45|jstor=778548|doi= 10.2307/778548 }}</ref> and [[René Girard]]'s postmortem psychoanalysis posits a worshipful rivalry with [[Richard Wagner]].<ref>René Girard, "Superman in the Underground: Strategies of Madness—Nietzsche, Wagner, and Dostoevsky", ''MLN", Vol. 91, No. 6, ''Comparative Literature". (December 1976), pp. 1161–85.</ref> Nietzsche had previously written, "All superior men who were irresistibly drawn to throw off the yoke of any kind of morality and to frame new laws had, if they were not actually mad, no alternative but to make themselves or pretend to be mad." (Daybreak, 14) The diagnosis of syphilis has since been challenged and a diagnosis of "[[bipolar disorder|manic-depressive illness]] with periodic [[psychosis]] followed by [[vascular dementia]]" was put forward by Cybulska prior to Schain's study.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cybulska |first=EM |title=The madness of Nietzsche: a misdiagnosis of the millennium? |journal=Hospital Medicine |volume=61 |issue=8 |pages=571–75 |date=August 2000 |pmid=11045229 |doi=10.12968/hosp.2000.61.8.1403}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schain |first=Richard |title=The Legend of Nietzsche's Syphilis |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-313-31940-2}}{{Page needed|date=September 2010}}</ref> [[Leonard Sax]] suggested the slow growth of a right-sided retro-orbital [[meningioma]] as an explanation of Nietzsche's dementia;<ref>Leonard Sax, "What was the cause of Nietzsche's dementia?" ''Journal of Medical Biography'' 2003; 11: 47–54.</ref> Orth and Trimble postulated [[frontotemporal dementia]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Orth |first1=M |last2=Trimble |first2=MR |title=Friedrich Nietzsche's mental illness—general paralysis of the insane vs. frontotemporal dementia |journal=Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica |volume=114 |issue=6 |pages=439–44; discussion 445 |date=December 2006 |pmid=17087793 |doi=10.1111/j.1600-0447.2006.00827.x}}</ref> while other researchers have proposed a hereditary stroke disorder called [[CADASIL]].<ref>{{Cite journal |vauthors=Hemelsoet D, Hemelsoet K, Devreese D |title=The neurological illness of Friedrich Nietzsche |journal=Acta Neurologica Belgica |volume=108 |issue=1 |pages=9–16 |date=March 2008 |pmid=18575181}}</ref> Poisoning by [[mercury (element)|mercury]], a treatment for syphilis at the time of Nietzsche's death,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Dayan |first=L |author2=Ooi, C |title=Syphilis treatment: old and new |journal=Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy |date=October 2005 |volume=6 |issue=13 |pages=2271–80 |pmid=16218887 |doi=10.1517/14656566.6.13.2271}}</ref> has also been suggested.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Hammond |first1=David |title=Mercury Poisoning: The Undiagnosed Epidemic |date=2013 |page=11}}</ref>

In 1898 and 1899, Nietzsche suffered at least two strokes. This partially paralyzed him, leaving him unable to speak or walk. He likely suffered from clinical [[hemiparesis]]/hemiplegia on the left side of his body by 1899. After contracting [[pneumonia]] in mid-August 1900, he had another stroke during the night of 24–25 August and died at about noon on 25 August.<ref>Concurring reports in Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche's biography (1904) and a letter by Mathilde Schenk-Nietzsche to [[Meta von Salis]], 30 August 1900, quoted in Janz (1981) p. 221. Cf. Volz (1990), p. 251.</ref> Elisabeth had him buried beside his father at the church in [[Röcken]] bei [[Lützen]]. His friend and secretary Gast gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: "Holy be your name to all future generations!"<ref>{{Citation|url=http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_31.html |last=Schain |first=Richard |title=Nietzsche's Visionary Values – Genius or Dementia? |publisher=Philosophos |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060513011228/http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_31.html |archivedate=13 May 2006 |df= }}</ref>
[[File:Geburtshaus Friedrich Nietzsches mit Skulpturengruppe Röcken.jpg|thumb|Nietzsche's grave at Röcken with the sculpture ''Das Röckener Bacchanal'' by Klaus Friedrich Messerschmidt (2000)]]

[[Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche]] compiled ''[[The Will to Power (manuscript)|The Will to Power]]'' from Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks and published it posthumously. Because his sister arranged the book based on her own conflation of several of Nietzsche's early outlines and took great liberties with the material, the scholarly consensus has been that it does not reflect Nietzsche's intent. (For example, Elisabeth removed aphorism 35 of ''The Antichrist", where Nietzsche rewrote a passage of the Bible.) Indeed, [[Mazzino Montinari]], the editor of Nietzsche's ''[[Nachlass]]", called it a forgery.<ref>Montinari, Mazzino. ''The 'Will to Power' Does Not Exist".</ref>

=== Citizenship, nationality and ethnicity ===
General commentators and Nietzsche scholars, whether emphasizing his cultural background or his language, overwhelmingly label Nietzsche as a "German philosopher".<ref>{{Citation |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ |title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |contribution=Nietzsche|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |year=2017 }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |isbn=978-0-19-285414-8 |title=Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction |at=preview|last1=Tanner |first1=Michael |date=2000}}</ref>{{sfn|Magnus|1999}}<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=Xeb80itrlRIC&pg=PA1&dq=%22German+philosopher%22+Nietzsche |title=The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche |page=1|isbn=978-0-521-36767-7 |last1=Magnus |first1=Bernd |last2=Higgins |first2=Kathleen Marie |year= 1996 }}</ref> Others do not assign him a national category.<ref>{{Citation |editor-first=Edward |editor-last=Craid |title=The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of philosophy |place=Abingdon |publisher=Routledge |year=2005 |pages=726–41}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |first=Simon |last=Blackburn |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy |place=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2005 |pages=252–53}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|editor1-first=Jonathan |editor1-last=Rée |editor2-first=JO |editor2-last=Urmson|title=The Concise encyclopedia of western philosophy |origyear=1960 |edition= 3rd |year=2005 |publisher=Routledge |location=London|isbn=978-0-415-32924-8 |pages=267–70}}</ref> Germany had not yet been unified into a nation-state, but Nietzsche was born a citizen of [[Prussia]], which was then part of the [[German Confederation]].<ref name="Mencken2008">{{Cite book |first=Henry Louis |last=Mencken |title=The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche |url=https://books.google.com/?id=dyOwIOqoopkC&pg=PA11 |year=2008 |publisher=Wilder Publications |isbn=978-1-60459-331-0 |pages=11–}}</ref> His birthplace, [[Röcken]], is in the modern German state of [[Saxony-Anhalt]]. When he accepted his post at Basel, Nietzsche applied for the annulment of his Prussian citizenship.<ref>{{Citation |quote=Er beantragte also bei der preussischen Behörde seine Expatriierung (translation: he accordingly applied to the Prussian authorities for expatrification) |first=Curt Paul |last=Janz |title=Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie |volume=1 |place=Munich |publisher=Carl Hanser |year=1978 |page=263}}</ref> The official response confirming the revocation of his citizenship came in a document dated 17 April 1869,<ref>{{Citation |language=German |contribution=Entlassungsurkunde für den Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche aus Naumburg |first1=Giorgio |last1=Colli |first2=Mazzino |last2=Montinari |title=Nietzsche Briefwechsel: Kritische Gesamtausgabe |volume=I.4 |place=Berlin |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |year=1993 |isbn=978-3-11-012277-0 |page=566}}</ref> and for the rest of his life he remained officially [[Statelessness|stateless]].

Nietzsche believed his ancestors were [[Polish people|Polish]],<ref name="Mencken1913">{{Cite book |first=Henry Louis |last=Mencken |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |url=https://books.google.com/?id=_r71AzHvf64C&pg=PA6&dq=poland+polish |year=1913 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=978-1-56000-649-7 |page=6}}</ref> at least toward the end of his life. He wore a [[signet ring]] bearing the [[Radwan coat of arms]], traceable back to [[Szlachta|Polish nobility]] of medieval times<ref name="nietzsche-radwan-ring">{{cite web
| url = http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/
| title = Nietzsche's ring
| last = Warberg
| first = Ulla-Karin
| website = auktionsverket.com
| publisher = [[Stockholms Auktionsverk]]
| location = [[Östermalm]], [[Stockholm]], [[Sweden|SWEDEN]]
| accessdate = 16 August 2018
| archiveurl = https://archive.fo/20170624204834/http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/
| archivedate = 24 June 2017
| quote = ''Nietzsche's ring{{nbsp}}... it was worn by Friedrich Nietzsche and it represents the ancient Radwan coat of arms, which can be traced back to the Polish nobility of medieval times.''}}</ref> and the surname "Nicki" of the Polish noble ([[szlachta]]) family bearing that coat of arms.<ref>{{cite book
| last = Niesiecki
| first = Kasper
| author-link = Kasper Niesiecki
| last2 = Bobrowicz
| first2 = Jan Nepomucen
| author-link2 = Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz
| year = 1841
| orig-year = 1728
| location = [[Leipzig]], [[Germany]]
| publisher = [[Breitkopf & Härtel]]
| chapter = Radwan Herb
| trans-chapter = Radwan Coat of Arms
| title = Herbarz Polski Kaspra Niesieckiego S.J., powiększony dodatkami z poźniejszych autorów, rękopismów, dowodów urzędowych i wydany przez Jana Nep. Bobrowicza.
| trans-title = Polish armorial of Kasper Niesiecki S.J., enlarged by additions from other authors, manuscripts, official proofs and published by Jan Nep. Bobrowicz.
| chapter-url = http://ebuw.uw.edu.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=165
| chapter-format = Online book
| type = [[Szlachta|Noble/szlachta]] genealogical and heraldic reference
| volume = VIII
| page = 28
| quote = Herbowni ... Nicki, ... (Heraldic Family ... Nicki, ...)}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|last = Niesiecki
|first = Kasper
|author-link = Kasper Niesiecki
|last2 = Bobrowicz
|first2 = Jan Nepomucen
|author-link2 = Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz
|title = Kasper Niesiecki, Herbarz Polski, wyd. J.N. Bobrowicz, Lipsk 1839–1845: herb Radwan (t. 8 s. 27-29)
|orig-year = 1728
|year = 1845
|website = wielcy.pl
|location = [[Kraków]], [[Poland|POLAND]], EU
|publisher = Dr Minakowski Publikacje Elektroniczne
|format = website
|url = http://wielcy.pl/niesiecki/herb/radwan/5066.php
|language = Polish
|type = [[Szlachta|Noble/szlachta]] genealogical and heraldic reference
|accessdate = 17 August 2018
|archiveurl = https://archive.today/20180817062826/http://wielcy.pl/niesiecki/herb/radwan/5066.php
|archivedate = 17 August 2018
|quote = Herbowni ... Nicki, ... (Heraldic Family ... Nicki, ...)
|url-status = live
|df = dmy-all
}}</ref> Gotard Nietzsche, a member of the Nicki family, left Poland for [[Prussia]]. His descendants later settled in the [[Electorate of Saxony]] circa the year 1700.<ref>{{cite web
| url = http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/
| title = Nietzsche's ring
| last = Warberg
| first = Ulla-Karin
| website = auktionsverket.com
| publisher = [[Stockholms Auktionsverk]]
| location = [[Östermalm]], [[Stockholm]], [[Sweden|SWEDEN]]
| accessdate = 16 August 2018
| archiveurl = https://archive.fo/20170624204834/http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/
| archivedate = 24 June 2017
| quote = ''In 1905, the Polish writer Bernhard Scharlitt in the spirit of Polish patriotism wrote an article about the Nietzsche family. In Herbarz Polski, a genealogy of Polish nobility, he had come across a note about a family named 'Nicki,' who could be traced back to Radwan. A member of this family named Gotard Nietzsche had left Poland for Prussia, and his descendants had eventually settled in Saxony around the year 1700.''}}</ref> Nietzsche wrote in 1888, "My ancestors were Polish noblemen (Nietzky); the type seems to have been well preserved despite three generations of German mothers."{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=6}} At one point, Nietzsche becomes even more adamant about his Polish identity. "I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood."<ref>Fredrick Appel Cornell, ''Nietzsche Contra Democracy", University Press (1998), p. 114</ref> On yet another occasion, Nietzsche stated, "Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins{{nbsp}}... I am proud of my Polish descent."<ref>{{Citation |first=Henry Louis |last=Mencken |title=The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche |origyear=1908 |publisher=University of Michigan |year=2006 |page=6 |url=https://books.google.com/?id=nnEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA6&dq=Nietzsche+Polish}}</ref> Nietzsche believed his name might have been [[Germanized]], in one letter claiming, "I was taught to ascribe the origin of my blood and name to Polish noblemen who were called Niëtzky and left their home and nobleness about a hundred years ago, finally yielding to unbearable suppression: they were [[Protestants]]".<ref>Letter to Heinrich von Stein, December 1882, ''KGB'' III 1, Nr. 342, p. 287; ''KGW'' V 2, p. 579; ''KSA'' 9 p. 681</ref>

Most scholars dispute Nietzsche's account of his family's origins. Hans von Müller debunked the genealogy put forward by Nietzsche's sister in favor of a Polish noble heritage.<ref>von Müller, "Nietzsches Vorfahren", reprinted ''Nietzsche-Studien'' 31 (2002): 253–75.</ref> [[Max Oehler]], Nietzsche's cousin and curator of the [[Nietzsche Archive]] at [[Weimar]], argued that all of Nietzsche's ancestors bore German names, including the wives' families.{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=6}} Oehler claims that Nietzsche came from a long line of German [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] clergymen on both sides of his family, and modern scholars regard the claim of Nietzsche's Polish ancestry as a "pure invention".<ref name=mencken>{{Citation |first=Henry Louis |last=Mencken |title=The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche |others=introd. & comm. Charles Q. Bufe |publisher=See Sharp Press |place=US |year=2003 |page=2}}</ref> Colli and Montinari, the editors of Nietzsche's assembled letters, gloss Nietzsche's claims as a "mistaken belief" and "without foundation".<ref>Letter to Heinrich von Stein, December 1882, ''KGB'' III 7.1 p. 313.</ref><ref>Letter to Georg Brandes, 10 April 1888, ''KGB'' III 7.3/1 p. 293.</ref> The name ''Nietzsche'' itself is not a Polish name, but an exceptionally common one throughout central Germany, in this and cognate forms (such as ''Nitsche'' and ''Nitzke''). The name derives from the forename ''Nikolaus,'' abbreviated to ''Nick''; assimilated with the Slavic ''Nitz,'' it first became ''Nitsche'' and then ''Nietzsche".{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=6}}

It is not known why Nietzsche wanted to be thought of as Polish nobility. According to biographer [[R. J. Hollingdale]], Nietzsche's propagation of the Polish ancestry myth may have been part of his "campaign against Germany".{{sfn|Hollingdale|1999|p=6}}

=== Relationships and sexuality ===
Nietzsche never married. He proposed to [[Lou Andreas-Salomé|Lou Salomé]] three times and each time was rejected.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://rsleve.people.wm.edu/FNLAS_1882.html|title=Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé: Chronicle of a Relationship 1882|last=Leventhal|first=Robert S.|date=2001|website=rsleve.people.wm.edu}}</ref> One theory blames Salomé's view on sexuality as one of the reasons for her alienation from Nietzsche. As articulated in the 1898 [[novella]] ''Fenitschka,'' she viewed the idea of sexual intercourse as prohibitive and marriage as a violation, with some suggesting that they indicated [[sexual repression]] and [[neurosis]] .<ref>{{Cite book|title=Nietzsche's Women: Beyond the Whip|last=Diethe|first=Carol|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2RAhAAAAQBAJ|year=1996|isbn=978-3-11-014819-0|location=Berlin|page=56}}</ref>

Deussen cited the episode of [[Cologne]]'s brothel in February 1965 as instrumental to understand the philosopher's way of thinking, mostly about women. Nietzsche was surreptitiously accompanied to a "call house" from which he clumsily escaped upon seeing "a half dozen apparitions dressed with sequins and veils". According to Deussen, Nietzsche "never decided to remain unmarried all his life. For him women had to sacrifice themselves to the care and benefit of men."<ref>Deussen, Paul "Erinnerungen an Friedrich Nietzsche", F.A. Brockaus, Leipzig 1901.</ref> Nietzsche scholar {{interlanguage link|Joachim Köhler|de|Joachim Köhler (Philosoph)}} has attempted to explain Nietzsche's life history and philosophy by claiming that he was homosexual. Köhler argues that Nietzsche's syphilis, which is "...{{nbsp}}usually considered to be the product of his encounter with a prostitute in a brothel in [[Cologne]] or [[Leipzig]], is equally likely. Some maintain that Nietzsche contracted it in a male brothel in [[Genoa]]."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Köhler |first=Joachim |title=Zarathustra's secret: the interior life of Friedrich Nietzsche |year=2002 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=978-0-300-09278-3 |page=xv}}</ref> The acquisition of the infection from a homosexual brothel was confirmed by [[Sigmund Freud]], who cited Otto Binswanger as his source.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Nietzsche and Jewish Culture|last=Golomb|first=Jacob|publisher=Routledge|year=2001|isbn=978-0-415-09512-9|location=London|page=202}}</ref> Köhler also suggests Nietzsche may have had a romantic relationship, as well as a friendship, with [[Paul Rée]].<ref name="Megill" /> There is the claim that Nietzsche's homosexuality was widely known in the [[Vienna Psychoanalytic Society]], with Nietzsche's friend [[Paul Deussen]] claiming that "he was a man who had never touched a woman".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Young Nietzsche: Becoming a Genius|last=Pletsch|first=Carl|publisher=The Free Press|year=1992|isbn=978-0-02-925042-6|location=New York|page=67}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship|last=Small|first=Robin|publisher=Clarendon Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-19-927807-7|location=Oxford|page=207}}</ref>

Köhler's views have not found wide acceptance among Nietzsche scholars and commentators. Allan Megill argues that, while Köhler's claim that Nietzsche was conflicted about his homosexual desire cannot simply be dismissed, "the evidence is very weak", and Köhler may be projecting twentieth-century understandings of sexuality on nineteenth-century notions of friendship.<ref name="Megill">{{cite journal | author = Allan Megill | year = 1996 | title = Historicizing Nietzsche? Paradoxes and Lessons of a Hard Case | journal = The Journal of Modern History | volume = 68 | issue = 1 | pages = 114–52 | jstor = 2124335 | doi = 10.1086/245288 }}</ref> It is also known that Nietzsche frequented [[Heterosexuality|heterosexual]] brothels.<ref name=":0" /> [[Nigel Rodgers]] and [[Mel Thompson]] have argued that continuous sickness and headaches hindered Nietzsche from engaging much with women. Yet they offer other examples in which Nietzsche expressed his affections to women, including Wagner's wife [[Cosima Wagner]].<ref>Rogers, N., & Thompson, M. (2004). ''[[Philosophers Behaving Badly]]". London: Peter Owen.</ref>

Other scholars have argued that Köhler's sexuality-based interpretation is not helpful in understanding Nietzsche's philosophy.<ref>{{cite journal | author = Michael W. Grenke | year = 2003 | title = How Boring... | journal = The Review of Politics | volume = 65 | issue = 1 | pages = 152–54 | jstor = 1408799 | doi = 10.1017/s0034670500036640}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23249-zarathustra-s-secret-the-interior-life-of-friedrich-nietzsche/ |title=Zarathustra's Secret. The Interior Life of Friedrich Nietzsche |publisher=Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews |author=Mathias Risse|date=13 January 2003 }}</ref> However, there are also those who stress that, if Nietzsche preferred men—with this preference constituting his [[Psychosexual development|psycho-sexual]] make-up—but could not admit his desires to himself, it meant he acted in conflict with his philosophy.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Nietzsche on Ethics and Politics|last=Clark|first=Maudemarie|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2015|isbn=978-0-19-937184-6|location=Oxford|page=154}}</ref>

=== Composer ===
Nietzsche composed several works for voice, piano, and violin beginning in 1858 at the Schulpforta in Naumburg, when he started to work on musical compositions. [[Richard Wagner]] was dismissive of Nietzsche's music, allegedly mocking a birthday gift of a piano composition sent by Nietzsche in 1871 to his wife [[Cosima Wagner|Cosima]]. German conductor and pianist [[Hans von Bülow]] also described another of Nietzsche's pieces as "the most undelightful and the most antimusical draft on musical paper that I have faced in a long time".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/friedrich-nietzsche-composer/|title=Who knew? Friedrich Nietzsche was also a pretty decent classical composer|website=Classic FM}}</ref>

In a letter of 1887, Nietzsche claimed, "There has never been a philosopher who has been in essence a musician to such an extent as I am", although he also admitted that he "might be a thoroughly unsuccessful musician".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/hear-classical-music-composed-by-friedrich-nietzsche.html|title=Hear Classical Music Composed by Friedrich Nietzsche: 43 Original Tracks|first1=in|last1=Music|first2=Philosophy ||last2=March 17th|first3=2015 8|last3=Comments}}</ref>

== Philosophy ==
[[File:Nietzsche187c.jpg|thumb|upright|Nietzsche, 1869]]
{{Main|Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche}}

Because of Nietzsche's [[evocative]] style and provocative ideas, his philosophy generates passionate reactions. His works remain controversial, due to their varying interpretations and misinterpretations. In the Western philosophy tradition, Nietzsche's writings have been described as the unique case of free revolutionary thought, that is, revolutionary in its structure and problems, although not tied to any revolutionary project.<ref name="Bennett2001">{{Cite book |author=Benjamin Bennett |title=Goethe As Woman: The Undoing of Literature |url=https://books.google.com/?id=AVYbszVKUO4C&pg=PA184 |accessdate=3 January 2013 |year=2001 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=978-0-8143-2948-1 |page=184}}</ref> His writings have also been described as a revolutionary project in which his philosophy serves as the foundation of a European cultural rebirth.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography|last=Young|first=Julian|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2010|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Friedrich Nietzsche: Herald of a New Era|last=Bowman|first=William|publisher=Hazar Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-9975703-0-4|location=|pages=}}</ref>

=== Apollonian and Dionysian ===
{{Main|Apollonian and Dionysian}}

The ''Apollonian and Dionysian'' is a two-fold philosophical concept, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology: [[Apollo]] and [[Dionysus]]. Even though the concept is famously related to ''[[The Birth of Tragedy]],'' the poet [[Friedrich Hölderlin|Hölderlin]] had already spoken of it, and [[Johann Joachim Winckelmann|Winckelmann]] had talked of [[Dionysus|Bacchus]]. One year before the publication of ''The Birth of Tragedy,'' Nietzsche wrote a fragment titled "On Music and Words".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_various/on_music_and_words_and_rhetoric.htm|title=On Music and Words and Rhetoric|website=nietzsche.holtof.com}}</ref> In it, he asserted the [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauerian]] judgment that music is a primary expression of the essence of everything. Secondarily derivative are [[Lyric poetry|lyrical poetry]] and drama, which represent mere [[Phenomenon|phenomenal]] appearances of objects. In this way, [[tragedy]] is born from music.

Nietzsche found in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that [[Transcendence (philosophy)|transcended]] the pessimism found in the so-called [[Silenus#The wisdom of Silenus|wisdom of Silenus]]. The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering depicted by characters on stage, passionately and joyously affirmed life, finding it worth living. A main theme in ''[[The Birth of Tragedy]]'' was that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian ''Kunsttrieben'' ("artistic impulses") forms dramatic arts, or tragedies. He goes on to argue that this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek [[tragedians]]. Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, and logic, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, and ecstasy. Nietzsche used these two forces because, for him, the world of mind and order on one side, and passion and chaos on the other, formed principles that were fundamental to the [[Culture of Greece|Greek culture]]:<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.historyguide.org/europe/dio_apollo.html |title=Nietzsche, Dionysus and Apollo}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=iP4sA3kwcFsC&pg=PA69&dq=Jim+Morrison+Apollonian+and+Dionysian |title=Ideas About Art|isbn=978-1-4443-9600-3|last1=Desmond|first1=Kathleen K|year= 2011}}</ref> the Apollonian side being a dreaming state, full of illusions; and Dionysian being the state of intoxication, representing the liberations of instinct and dissolution of boundaries. In this mold, man appears as the [[satyr]]. He is the horror of the annihilation of the principle of [[individuation|individuality]] and at the same time someone who delights in its destruction.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/creationofknowledge/apollonianism-dyonysianisism.html|title=Nietzsche's Apollonianism and Dionysiansism: Meaning and Interpretation|website=www.bachelorandmaster.com}}</ref> Both of these principles are meant to represent [[Cognition|cognitive]] states that appear through art as the power of nature in man.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.primordialtraditions.net/prime/Library/DionysusinNietzscheandGreekMyth.aspx |title=Dionysus in Nietzsche and Greek Myth |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120814164705/http://www.primordialtraditions.net/prime/Library/DionysusinNietzscheandGreekMyth.aspx |archive-date=14 August 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Apollonian and Dionysian juxtapositions appear in the interplay of tragedy: the tragic hero of the drama, the main protagonist, struggles to make (Apollonian) order of his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) fate, though he dies unfulfilled. Elaborating on the conception of [[Hamlet]] as an intellectual who cannot make up his mind, and therefore is a living [[antithesis]] to the man of action, Nietzsche argues that a Dionysian figure possesses knowledge to realize that his actions cannot change the eternal balance of things, and it disgusts him enough not to be able to act at all. Hamlet falls under this category—he has glimpsed the supernatural reality through the Ghost, he has gained true knowledge and knows that no action of his has the power to change this.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://issuu.com/mcc1289/docs/hamlet-and-nietzsche|title=Hamlet and Nietzsche|website=Issuu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=http://geoffklock.blogspot.com/2006/11/nietzsche-on-hamlet-commonplace-book.html |title=Nietzsche on Hamlet (Commonplace Book)|year=2006}}</ref> For the audience of such drama, this tragedy allows them to sense what Nietzsche called the ''Primordial Unity,'' which revives Dionysian nature. He describes primordial unity as the increase of strength, experience of fullness and plenitude bestowed by [[wikt:frenzy#Noun|frenzy]]. Frenzy acts as an intoxication, and is crucial for the [[Physiology|physiological]] condition that enables the creation of any art.<ref name="auto">{{cite web|url=http://jorbon.tripod.com/niet01.html|title=Art in Nietzsche's philosophy|website=jorbon.tripod.com}}</ref> Stimulated by this state, a person's artistic will is enhanced:

<blockquote>In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever wills is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power—until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is—art.</blockquote>

Nietzsche is adamant that the works of [[Aeschylus]] and [[Sophocles]] represent the apex of artistic creation, the true realization of tragedy; it is with [[Euripides]], he states, that tragedy begins its ''Untergang'' (literally "going under" or "downward-way", meaning decline, deterioration, downfall, death, etc.). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' use of [[Socratic method|Socratic rationalism]] and [[morality]] in his tragedies, claiming that the infusion of [[ethics]] and [[reason]] robs tragedy of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the Dionysian and Apollonian. [[Socrates]] emphasized reason to such a degree that he diffused the value of [[myth]] and suffering to human knowledge. [[Plato]] continued along this path in his dialogues, and the modern world eventually inherited reason at the expense of artistic impulses that could be found only in the Apollonian and Dionysus dichotomy. This leads to his conclusion that European culture from the time of Socrates had always been only Apollonian, thus [[decadence|decadent]] and unhealthy.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.carnaval.com/prophecy/|title=Dionysos versus Apollo|website=www.carnaval.com}}</ref> He notes that whenever Apollonian culture dominates, the Dionysian lacks the structure to make a coherent art, and when Dionysian dominates, the Apollonian lacks the necessary passion. Only the fertile interplay of these two forces, brought together as an art, represented the best of Greek tragedy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/nietzsche/section1/|title=SparkNotes: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): The Birth of Tragedy|website=www.sparknotes.com}}</ref>

An example of the impact of this idea can be seen in the book ''Patterns of Culture,'' where [[anthropologist]] [[Ruth Benedict]] acknowledges Nietzschean opposites of "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" as the stimulus for her thoughts about [[Native American culture]]s.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://classes.yale.edu/03-04/anth500b/projects/project_sites/02_alexy/ruthpatterns.html |first=Ruth |last=Benedict |title=Patterns of Culture}}</ref> [[Carl Jung]] has written extensively on the dichotomy in ''[[Psychological Types]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://pkdreligion.blogspot.com/2011/11/influence-of-cg-jung-on-pkd-by-frank.html |title=Influence of C.G. Jung on PKD – notes by Frank Bertrand, excerpt Umland|year=2011}}</ref> [[Michel Foucault]] has commented that his own book ''[[Madness and Civilization]]'' should be read "under the sun of the great Nietzschean inquiry". Here Foucault references Nietzsche's description of the birth and death of tragedy and his explanation that the subsequent tragedy of the Western world was the refusal of the tragic and, with that, refusal of the sacred.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=4aNoFpNfYeMC&pg=PA1&dq=foucault+genealogy |title=Foucault's Nietzschean Genealogy|isbn=978-0-7914-1149-0|last1=Mahon|first1=Michael|year=1992}}</ref> Painter [[Mark Rothko]] was influenced by Nietzsche's view of tragedy, which were presented in ''The Birth of Tragedy.''

=== Perspectivism ===
{{Main|Perspectivism}}

Nietzsche claimed the death of God would eventually lead to the loss of any universal perspective on things, and along with it any coherent sense of [[objective truth]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yockey |first1=Francis |title=Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics |publisher=The Palingenesis Project (Wermod and Wermod Publishing Group), 2013 |isbn=978-0-9561835-7-6|date=14 January 2013 }}</ref>{{Sfn |Lampert |1986 |pp=17–18}}{{Sfn |Heidegger}} Nietzsche himself rejected the idea of objective reality, arguing that knowledge is [[Contingency (philosophy)|contingent]] and conditional, relative to various fluid perspectives or interests.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=TxlMccAak4wC&q=Objective |title=Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation |last1=Cox |first1=Christoph|isbn=978-0-520-92160-3 |year=1999 }}</ref> This leads to constant reassessment of rules (i.e., those of philosophy, the scientific method, etc.) according to the circumstances of individual perspectives.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schacht |first1=Richard |authorlink=Richard Schacht |title=Nietzsche |date=1983 |page=61}}</ref> This view has acquired the name ''[[perspectivism]].''

In ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra|Also sprach Zarathustra]],'' Nietzsche proclaims that a table of values hangs above every great person. He points out that what is common among different peoples is the act of esteeming, of creating values, even if the values are different from one people to the next. Nietzsche asserts that what made people great was not the content of their beliefs, but the act of valuing. Thus the values a community strives to articulate are not as important as the collective will to see those values come to pass. The willing is more essential than the merit of the goal itself, according to Nietzsche. "A thousand goals have there been so far", says Zarathustra, "for there are a thousand peoples. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking: the one goal is lacking. Humanity still has no goal." Hence, the title of the aphorism, "On The Thousand And One Goals". The idea that one value-system is no more worthy than the next, although it may not be directly ascribed to Nietzsche, has become a common premise in modern social science. [[Max Weber]] and [[Martin Heidegger]] absorbed it and made it their own. It shaped their philosophical and cultural endeavor, as well as their political understanding. Weber, for example, relies on Nietzsche's perspectivism by maintaining that objectivity is still possible—but only after a particular perspective, value, or end has been established.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.criticism.com/md/weber1.html |title=Max Weber's View of Objectivity in Social Science |first=Hoenisch |last=Steve}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://socialsciences.scielo.org/scielo.php?pid=S1518-44712006000200006&script=sci_arttext |title=Culture and perspectivism in Nietzsche's and Weber's view|journal=Teoria & Sociedade|volume=2|issue=SE|page=0|date=2006|last1=Nobre|first1=Renarde Freire}}</ref>

Among his critique of traditional philosophy of [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[René Descartes|Descartes]] and [[Plato]] in ''[[Beyond Good and Evil]],'' Nietzsche attacked ''[[thing in itself]]'' and ''[[cogito ergo sum]]'' ("I think, therefore I am") as [[Falsifiability|unfalsifiable]] beliefs based on naive acceptance of previous notions and [[fallacy|fallacies]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.monomorphic.org/wordpress/objective-and-subjective-reality-perspectivism/ |title=Objective and subjective reality; perspectivism|year=2011}}</ref> Philosopher [[Alasdair MacIntyre]] puts Nietzsche in a high place in the history of philosophy. While criticizing nihilism and Nietzsche together as a sign of general decay,<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=3JA3vyj4slsC&pg=PA108&dq=Alasdair+MacIntyre+Nietzsche+Kant |title=From Hegel to Existentialism|isbn=978-0-19-506182-6|last1=Solomon|first1=Robert C|authorlink=Robert C. Solomon|year=1989}}</ref> he still commends him for recognizing psychological motives behind Kant and [[David Hume|Hume]]'s moral philosophy:<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=TN7sop-yILMC&pg=PA136&dq=Alasdair+MacIntyre+Nietzsche+Kant |title=Alasdair MacIntyre|isbn=978-0-521-79381-0|last1=Murphy|first1=Mark C|year=2003}}</ref>

<blockquote>For it was Nietzsche's historic achievement to understand more clearly than any other philosopher{{nbsp}}...not only that what purported to be appeals of [[Objectivity (philosophy)|objectivity]] were in fact expressions of subjective will, but also the nature of the problems that this posed for philosophy.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=Z9RaG9ccs44C&pg=PA37&dq=Alasdair+MacIntyre+Nietzsche+Kant |title=Tradition in the ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre|isbn=978-0-7391-4148-9|last1=Lutz|first1=Christopher Stephen|year=2009}}</ref></blockquote>

=== The "slave revolt" in morals ===
{{Main|Master–slave morality}}
{{more citations needed|section|date=October 2017}}

In ''[[Beyond Good and Evil]]'' and ''[[On the Genealogy of Morality]],'' Nietzsche's [[Genealogy (philosophy)|genealogical]] account of the development of modern moral systems occupies a central place. For Nietzsche, a fundamental shift took place during human history from thinking in terms of "good and bad" toward "good and evil".

The initial form of morality was set by a warrior [[Aristocracy (class)|aristocracy]] and other ruling castes of ancient civilizations. Aristocratic values of good and bad coincided with and reflected their relationship to lower [[caste]]s such as slaves. Nietzsche presents this "master morality" as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with [[Homer]]ic Greece.<ref name="LacewingSlave">{{cite web|url=http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/A2/Nietzsche/NietzscheMasterSlave.pdf|title=Nietzsche on master and slave morality|last1=Nietzsche|first1=Friedrich|last2=Lacewing|first2=Michael|date=|website=Amazon Online Web Services|publisher=Routledge Taylor & Francis Group|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510060210/http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/A2/Nietzsche/NietzscheMasterSlave.pdf|archive-date=10 May 2016|accessdate=29 September 2019}}</ref> To be "good" was to be happy and to have the things related to happiness: wealth, strength, health, power, etc. To be "bad" was to be like the slaves over whom the aristocracy ruled: poor, weak, sick, pathetic—objects of pity or disgust rather than hatred.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/notes-nietzsche.html#1.|title=Nietzsche, "Master and Slave Morality"|website=philosophy.lander.edu|access-date=2019-09-28}}</ref>

"Slave morality" developed as a reaction to master morality. Here, value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and submission; while evil is worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive. Nietzsche sees slave morality as pessimistic and fearful, its values emerging to improve the self-perception of slaves. He associates slave morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions, as it is born out of the [[ressentiment]] of slaves. Nietzsche argued that the idea of equality allowed slaves to overcome their own condition without despising themselves. And by denying the inherent inequality of people—in success, strength, beauty, and intelligence—slaves acquired a method of escape, namely by generating new values on the basis of rejecting master morality, which frustrated them. It was used to overcome the slave's own sense of inferiority before their (better-off) masters. It does so by making out slave weakness, for example, to be a matter of choice, by relabeling it as "meekness". The "good man" of master morality is precisely the "evil man" of slave morality, while the "bad man" is recast as the "good man".<ref name="LacewingSlave" />

Nietzsche sees slave morality as a source of the nihilism that has overtaken Europe. Modern Europe and Christianity exist in a hypocritical state due to a tension between master and slave morality, both contradictory values determining, to varying degrees, the values of most Europeans (who are "[[motley]]"). Nietzsche calls for exceptional people to no longer be ashamed in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which he deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. He cautions, however, that morality, per se, is not bad; it is good for the masses, and should be left to them. Exceptional people, on the other hand, should follow their own "inner law".<ref name="LacewingSlave" /> A favorite motto of Nietzsche, taken from [[Pindar]], reads: "Become what you are."<ref name="KYLook">{{cite web |last1=Look |first1=Brandon |title='Becoming Who One Is' in Spinoza and Nietzsche |url=http://www.uky.edu/~look/essays/Spinoza&Nietzsche.pdf |website=uky.edu |publisher=University of Kentucky |accessdate=28 September 2019}}</ref>

A long-standing assumption about Nietzsche is that he preferred master over slave morality. However, eminent Nietzsche scholar [[Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Walter Kaufmann]] rejected this interpretation, writing that Nietzsche's analyses of these two types of morality were used only in a [[descriptive ethics|descriptive]] and historic sense; they were not meant for any kind of acceptance or glorification.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=wvKRUSdUsnkC&pg=PA213&dq=Master+slave+morality |title=From Shakespeare to existentialism|isbn=978-0-691-01367-1|last1=Kaufmann|first1=Walter Arnold|year=1980}}</ref> On the other hand, it is clear from his own writings that Nietzsche hoped for the victory of master morality. He linked the "salvation and future of the human race with the unconditional dominance"<ref>{{Cite book|title=On the Genealogy of Morals|last=Nietzsche|first=Friedrich|year=1887|isbn=|location=|page=First essay, section 16}}</ref> of master morality and called master morality "a higher order of values, the noble ones, those that say Yes to life, those that guarantee the future".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Ecce Homo|last=Nietzsche|first=Friedrich|year=1908|isbn=|location=|page=Chapter on The Case of Wagner, section 2}}</ref> Just as "there is an order of rank between man and man", there is also an order of rank "between morality and morality".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Beyond Good and Evil|last=Nietzsche|first=Friedrich|year=1886|isbn=|location=|page=Section 228}}</ref> Indeed, Nietzsche waged a philosophic war against the slave morality of Christianity in his "revaluation of all values" in order to bring about the victory of a new master morality that he called the "philosophy of the future" (''Beyond Good and Evil'' is subtitled ''Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future'').<ref>{{Cite book|title=Friedrich Nietzsche: Herald of a New Era|last=Bowman|first=William|publisher=Hazar Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-9975703-0-4|location=|pages=31–38, 60–106}}</ref>

In ''[[The Dawn (book)|Daybreak]],'' Nietzsche begins his "Campaign against Morality". {{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=187}}{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888d |loc=M I}} He calls himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticizes the prominent moral philosophies of his day: Christianity, [[Kantianism]], and [[utilitarianism]]. Nietzsche's concept "[[God is dead]]" applies to the doctrines of Christendom, though not to all other faiths: he claimed that [[Buddhism]] is a successful religion that he compliments for fostering critical thought.{{Sfn |Sedgwick |2009 |p=26}} Still, Nietzsche saw his philosophy as a counter-movement to nihilism through appreciation of art:

{{quote|text=Art as the single superior counterforce against all will to negation of life, art as the anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, anti-Nihilist par excellence.<ref name="auto" />|sign=|source=}}

Nietzsche claimed that the Christian faith as practiced was not a proper representation of Jesus' teachings, as it forced people merely to believe in the way of Jesus but not to act as Jesus did; in particular, his example of refusing to judge people, something that Christians had constantly done.{{Sfn |Sedgwick |2009 |p=26}} He condemned institutionalized Christianity for emphasizing a morality of [[pity]] (''Mitleid''), which assumes an inherent illness in society:{{Sfn |Sedgwick |2009 |p=27}}
{{quote|text=Christianity is called the religion of ''pity.'' Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength which suffering as such inflicts on life is still further increased and multiplied by pity. Pity makes suffering contagious.<ref>''The Antichrist'', section 7. transl. Walter Kaufmann, in ''The Portable Nietzsche'', 1977, pp. 572–73.</ref>}}

In ''[[Ecce Homo (book)|Ecce Homo]]'' Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems based on a dichotomy of [[good and evil]] a "calamitous error",{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888d |loc=Why I Am a Destiny, § 3}} and wished to initiate a [[transvaluation of values|re-evaluation]] of the [[Value (ethics)|values]] of the Judeo-Christian world.{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888c |pp=4, 8, 18, 29, 37, 40, 51, 57, 59}} He indicates his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.

While Nietzsche attacked the principles of [[Judaism]], he was not [[antisemitic]]: in his work ''[[On the Genealogy of Morality]],'' he explicitly condemns antisemitism, and points out that his attack on Judaism was not an attack on contemporary Jewish people but specifically an attack upon the ancient Jewish priesthood who he claims [[antisemitic Christians]] paradoxically based their views upon.{{Sfn |Sedgwick |2009 |p=69}} An Israeli historian who performed a statistical analysis of everything Nietzsche wrote about Jews claims that cross-references and context make clear that almost all (85%) negative comments are actually attacks on Christian doctrine or, sarcastically, on Richard Wagner.<ref name="GolanNietzsche">{{cite book |last1=Golan |first1=Zev |title=God, Man and Nietzsche |date=2007-06-03 |publisher=iUniverse, Inc. |location=2021 Pine Lake Road, #100, Lincoln, NE 68512 |isbn=978-0-595-42700-0 |edition= First |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/God%2c+Man+and+Nietzsche.-a0168663654}}</ref>

Nietzsche felt that modern antisemitism was "despicable" and contrary to European ideals.{{Sfn |Sedgwick |2009 |p=68}} Its cause, in his opinion, was the growth in European nationalism and the endemic "jealousy and hatred" of Jewish success.{{Sfn |Sedgwick |2009 |p=68}} He wrote that Jews should be thanked for helping uphold a respect for the philosophies of ancient Greece,{{Sfn |Sedgwick |2009 |p=68}} and for giving rise to "the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher ([[Baruch Spinoza]]), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world".<ref name=nebraska>Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. ''Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits", Univ. of Nebraska Press (1986) p. 231</ref>

=== Death of God and nihilism ===
{{Main|God is dead|Nihilism}}

The statement "[[God is dead]]", occurring in several of Nietzsche's works (notably in ''[[The Gay Science]]''), has become one of his best-known remarks. On the basis of it, most commentators<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morgan |first=George Allen |title=What Nietzsche Means |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |location=Cambridge, MA |year=1941 |page=36 |isbn=978-0-8371-7404-4}}</ref> regard Nietzsche as an [[atheism|atheist]]; others (such as Kaufmann) suggest that this statement reflects a more subtle understanding of divinity. Recent developments in modern science and the increasing [[secularization]] of European society had effectively 'killed' the [[Abrahamic]] God, who had served as the basis for meaning and value in the West for more than a thousand years. The death of God may lead beyond bare perspectivism to outright [[nihilism]], the belief that nothing has any inherent importance and that life lacks purpose. Here he states that the Christian moral doctrine provides people with [[Intrinsic value (ethics)|intrinsic value]], belief in God (which [[Theodicy|justifies]] the evil in the world) and a basis for [[objectivity (philosophy)|objective knowledge]]. In this sense, in constructing a world where objective knowledge is possible, Christianity is an antidote to a primal form of nihilism—the despair of meaninglessness. As [[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]] put the problem, "If God as the suprasensory ground and goal of all reality is dead, if the suprasensory world of the ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory and above it its vitalizing and upbuilding power, then nothing more remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient himself."{{Sfn |Heidegger |p=61}}

One such reaction to the loss of meaning is what Nietzsche calls ''passive nihilism,'' which he recognizes in the [[pessimism|pessimistic]] philosophy of [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]]. Schopenhauer's doctrine—which Nietzsche also refers to as [[Buddhism in the West#Philosophical interest|Western Buddhism]]—advocates separating oneself from will and desires in order to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterizes this [[Asceticism|ascetic]] attitude as a "will to nothingness", whereby life turns away from itself, as there is nothing of value to be found in the world. This moving away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although in this, the nihilist appears to be inconsistent:<ref>This "will to nothingness" is still a willing of some sort, because it is exactly ''as'' a pessimist that Schopenhauer clings to life. See F. Nietzsche, ''[[On the Genealogy of Morals]]". III:7</ref>

{{quote|A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought ''not'' to be, and that the world as it ought to be does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, [[suffering]], willing, feeling) has no meaning: this 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos—an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.|Friedrich Nietzsche, KSA 12:9 [60]|taken from ''The Will to Power", section 585, translated by [[Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Walter Kaufmann]]}}

Nietzsche approaches the problem of nihilism as a deeply personal one, stating that this problem of the modern world has "become conscious" in him.<ref>F. Nietzsche, KSA 12:7 [8]</ref> Furthermore, he emphasizes both the danger of nihilism and the possibilities it offers, as seen in his statement that "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!"<ref>Friedrich Nietzsche, Complete Works Vol. 13.</ref> According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is ''overcome'' that a culture can have a true foundation on which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure. Heidegger interprets the death of God with what he explains as the death of [[metaphysics]]. He concludes that metaphysics has reached its potential and that the ultimate fate and downfall of metaphysics was proclaimed with the statement "God is dead".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hankey|first=Wayne J.|last2=Center|first2=Philosophy Documentation|title=Why Heidegger's "History" of Metaphysics is Dead|url=https://www.academia.edu/11651293|journal=American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly|language=en|volume=78|issue=3|pages=425–443|issn=1051-3558|doi=10.5840/acpq200478325|year=2004}}</ref>

=== Will to power ===
{{Main|Will to power}}

A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical outlook is the "[[will to power]]" (''der Wille zur Macht''), which he maintained provides a basis for understanding human behavior—more so than competing explanations, such as the ones based on pressure for adaptation or survival.{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1886 |p=13}}{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1882 |p=349}}{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1887 |p=II:12}} As such, according to Nietzsche, the drive for conservation appears as the major motivator of human or animal behavior only in exceptions, as the general condition of life is not one of emergency, of 'struggle for existence.'{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888b |loc=Skirmishes of an untimely man, § 14}} More often than not, self-conservation is but a consequence of a creature's will to exert its strength on the outside world.

In presenting his theory of human behavior, Nietzsche also addressed, and attacked, concepts from philosophies popularly embraced in his days, such as Schopenhauer's notion of an aimless will or that of [[utilitarianism]]. Utilitarians claim that what moves people is mainly the desire to be happy, to accumulate pleasure in their lives. But such a conception of happiness Nietzsche rejected as something limited to, and characteristic of, the bourgeois lifestyle of the English society,<ref>[[Brian Leiter]], ''Routledge guide to Nietzsche on morality,'' p. 121</ref> and instead put forth the idea that happiness is not an aim ''per se''—it is instead a consequence of a successful pursuit of one's aims, of the overcoming of hurdles to one's actions—in other words, of the fulfillment of the will.{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888c |loc=§ 2}}

Related to his theory of the will to power is his speculation, which he did not deem final,{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1886 |loc=I, § 36}} regarding the reality of the physical world, including inorganic matter—that, like man's affections and impulses, the material world is also set by the dynamics of a form of the will to power. At the core of his theory is a rejection of [[atomism]]—the idea that matter is composed of stable, indivisible units (atoms). Instead, he seems to have accepted the conclusions of [[Ruđer Bošković]], who explained the qualities of matter as a result of an interplay of forces.<ref>Nietzsche comments in many notes about matter being a hypothesis drawn from the metaphysics of substance: G. Whitlock, "Roger Boscovich, Benedict de Spinoza and Friedrich Nietzsche: The Untold Story", ''Nietzsche-Studien'' 25, 1996, p. 207.</ref>{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1886 |loc=I, § 12}} One study of Nietzsche defines his fully developed concept of the will to power as "the element from which derive both the quantitative difference of related forces and the quality that devolves into each force in this relation" revealing the will to power as "the principle of the synthesis of forces".{{Sfn |Deleuze |2006 |p=46}} Of such forces Nietzsche said they could perhaps be viewed as a primitive form of the will. Likewise he rejected as a mere interpretation the view that the movement of bodies is ruled by inexorable laws of nature, positing instead that movement was governed by the power relations between bodies and forces.{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1886 |loc=I, § 22}} Other scholars disagree that Nietzsche considered the material world to be a form of the will to power: Nietzsche thoroughly criticized metaphysics, and by including the will to power in the material world, he would simply be setting up a new metaphysics. Other than Aphorism 36 in ''Beyond Good and Evil,'' where he raised a question regarding will to power as being in the material world, they argue, it was only in his notes (unpublished by himself), where he wrote about a metaphysical will to power. And they also claim that Nietzsche directed his landlord to burn those notes in 1888 when he left Sils Maria for the last time.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Project MUSE – Nietzsche's Mirror: The World as Will to Power (review) |journal=The Journal of Nietzsche Studies |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=66–68 |doi=10.1353/nie.2006.0006 |date=14 June 2006 |last1=Leddy |first1=Thomas }}</ref> According to these scholars, the 'burning' story supports their thesis that at the end of his lucid life, Nietzsche rejected his project on the will to power. However, a recent study (Huang 2019) shows that although it is true that in 1888 Nietzsche wanted some of his notes burned, the 'burning' story indicates little about his project on the will to power, not only because only 11 'aphorisms' saved from the flames were ultimately incorporated into ''The Will to Power'' (this book contains 1067 'aphorisms'), but also because these abandoned notes mainly focus on topics such as critique of morality while touching upon the 'feeling of power' only once.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Did Nietzsche want his notes burned? Some reflections on the ''Nachlass'' problem |journal=British Journal for the History of Philosophy |volume=27 |issue=6 |pages=1194–1214 |doi=10.1080/09608788.2019.1570078 |date=19 March 2019 |last1=Huang |first1=Jing }}</ref>

=== Eternal return ===
{{Main|Eternal return}}

"Eternal return" (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a hypothetical concept that posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form for an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. It is a purely [[physics|physical]] concept, involving no supernatural [[reincarnation]], but the return of beings in the same bodies. Nietzsche first invokes the idea of eternal return in a parable in Section 341 of ''[[The Gay Science]]'', and also in the chapter "Of the Vision and the Riddle" in ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'', among other places.{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1961 |pp=176–80}} Nietzsche contemplates the idea as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and says that its burden is the "heaviest weight" imaginable ("''das schwerste Gewicht''").<ref>{{Citation |last=Kundera |first=Milan |title=The Unbearable Lightness of Being |year=1999 |page=5}}</ref> The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life, a reaction to [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]]'s praise of denying the will‐to‐live. To comprehend eternal recurrence in his thought, and to not merely come to peace with it but to embrace it, requires ''[[amor fati]]'', "love of fate".<ref name=dudl>{{Cite book |last=Dudley |first=Will |title=Hegel, Nietzsche, and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom |year=2002 |page=201 |url=https://books.google.com/?id=4dLeWFK6qp0C&pg=PA201|isbn=978-0-521-81250-4 }}</ref> As [[Heidegger]] points out in his lectures on Nietzsche, Nietzsche's first mention of eternal recurrence presents this concept as a [[Thought experiment|hypothetical ''question'']] rather than postulating it as a fact. According to Heidegger, it is the burden imposed by the ''question'' of eternal recurrence—whether or not such a thing could possibly be true—that is so significant in modern thought: "The way Nietzsche here patterns the first communication of the thought of the 'greatest burden' [of eternal recurrence] makes it clear that this 'thought of thoughts' is at the same time 'the most burdensome thought.'"<ref>See Heidegger, ''Nietzsche. Volume II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same'' trans. [[David Farrell Krell]]. New York: Harper and Row, 1984. 25.</ref>

Nietzsche posits not only that the universe is recurring over infinite time and space, but that the different versions of events that have occurred in the past may at one point or another take place again, hence "all configurations that have previously existed on this earth must yet meet".<ref name="Vintage Books">{{Cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Friedrich Nietzsche. Transl., with comm., by Walter |title=The Gay Science with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs |date=1974 |publisher=Vintage Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-394-71985-6 |page=16 |edition= [1st ed.]}}</ref> And with each version of events is hoping that some knowledge or awareness is gained to better the individual, hence "And thus it will happen one day that a man will be born again, just like me and a woman will be born, just like Mary—only that it is hoped to be that the head of this man may contain a little less foolishness{{nbsp}}..".<ref name="Vintage Books" />

[[Alexander Nehamas]] writes in ''Nietzsche: Life as Literature'' of three ways of seeing the eternal recurrence: "(A) My life will recur in exactly identical fashion." This expresses a totally fatalistic approach to the idea. "(B) My life may recur in exactly identical fashion." This second view conditionally asserts [[cosmology]], but fails to capture what Nietzsche refers to in ''The Gay Science'', 341. Finally, "(C) If my life were to recur, then it could recur only in identical fashion." Nehamas shows that this interpretation exists totally independently of physics and does not presuppose the truth of cosmology. Nehamas draws the conclusion that if individuals constitute themselves through their actions, then they can only maintain themselves in their current state by living in a recurrence of past actions (Nehamas, 153). Nietzsche's thought is the negation of the idea of a history of salvation.<ref name="Tongeren2000">{{Cite book |author=Paul Van Tongeren |title=Reinterpreting Modern Culture: An Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophy |url=https://books.google.com/?id=TqxrlA9Qxg0C&pg=PA295 |accessdate=18 April 2013 |year=2000 |publisher=Purdue University Press |isbn=978-1-55753-157-5 |page=295}}</ref>

=== Übermensch ===
{{Main|Übermensch}}

Another concept important to an understanding of Nietzsche's thought is the ''Übermensch''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |title=The Portable Nietzsche |translator=Walter Kaufmann |location=New York |publisher=Penguin |year=1954}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |editor1= Adrian Del Caro |editor2=Robert Pippin |title=Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra |isbn=978-0-521-60261-7 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2006}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lampert |first=Laurence |title=Nietzsche's Teaching |location=New Haven, CT |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1986}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rosen |first=Stanley |title=The Mask of Enlightenment |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995}}</ref> Developing the idea of nihilism, Nietzsche wrote ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra|Also sprach Zarathustra]]'', therein introducing the concept of a value-creating Übermensch, not as a project, but as an anti-project, the absence of any project.<ref name="Bennett2001" /> According to [[Laurence Lampert]], "the death of God must be followed by a long twilight of piety and nihilism (II. 19; III. 8). Zarathustra's gift of the overman is given to a mankind not aware of the problem to which the overman is the solution."{{Sfn |Lampert |1986 |p=18}} Zarathustra presents the overman as the creator of new values, and he appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and nihilism. The overman does not follow the morality of common people since that favors mediocrity but instead rises above the notion of [[good and evil]] and above the "[[Herd behavior|herd]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/notes-nietzsche.html|title=Nietzsche, "Master and Slave Morality"|website=philosophy.lander.edu}}</ref> In this way Zarathustra proclaims his ultimate goal as the journey towards the state of overman. He wants a kind of spiritual evolution of self-awareness and overcoming of traditional views on morality and justice that stem from the [[superstition]] beliefs still deeply rooted or related to the notion of God and Christianity.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gradesaver.com/thus-spoke-zarathustra/study-guide/themes|title=Thus Spoke Zarathustra Themes | GradeSaver|website=www.gradesaver.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=van der Braak|first=Andre|date=2015-03-31|title=Zen and Zarathustra: Self-Overcoming without a Self|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274738809|journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies|volume=46|pages=2–11|doi=10.5325/jnietstud.46.1.0002}}</ref>{{better source|date=July 2018}}

While interpretations of Nietzsche's overman vary wildly, here is one of his quotations from ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' (Prologue, §§ 3–4):<ref>{{Cite book|title=Thus spoke Zarathustra : a book for all and none|author1=Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844–1900.|date=1995|publisher=Modern Library|author2=Kaufmann, Walter, 1921–1980.|isbn=0-679-60175-9|location=New York|pages=12–15|oclc=32348799}}</ref>

{{quote|text=I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?{{nbsp}}... All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughing stock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape{{nbsp}}... The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth{{nbsp}}... Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss{{nbsp}}... what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.}}

Zarathustra contrasts the overman with the [[last man]] of egalitarian modernity (most obvious example being democracy), an alternative goal humanity might set for itself. The last man is possible only by mankind's having bred an [[Apathy|apathetic]] creature who has no great passion or commitment, who is unable to dream, who merely earns his living and keeps warm. This concept appears only in ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'', and is presented as a condition that would render the creation of the overman impossible.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.nietzschespirit.com/files/The_Most_Despicable_Man_is_Coming...the_Last_Man.html |title=Nietzsche and Heidegger |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120607060856/http://www.nietzschespirit.com/files/The_Most_Despicable_Man_is_Coming...the_Last_Man.html |archivedate=7 June 2012 }}</ref>

Some have suggested that the notion of eternal return is related to the overman, since willing the eternal return of the same is a necessary step if the overman is to create new values, untainted by the spirit of gravity or [[asceticism]]. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval; yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. It could seem that the overman, in being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Willing the eternal recurrence is presented as accepting the existence of the low while still recognizing it as the low, and thus as overcoming the spirit of gravity or asceticism. One must have the strength of the overman in order to will the eternal recurrence; that is, only the overman will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made.

The Nazis tried to incorporate the concept into their ideology. After his death, [[Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche]] became the curator and editor of her brother's manuscripts. She reworked Nietzsche's unpublished writings to fit her own [[German nationalism#1871 to World War I, 1914–1918|German nationalist]] ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly [[philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche#Nietzsche's criticism of anti-Semitism and nationalism|opposed to antisemitism and nationalism]]. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with [[fascism]] and [[Nazism]];<ref name="Golomb 2002" /> 20th century scholars contested this interpretation of his work, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available.

Although Nietzsche has famously been misrepresented as a predecessor to Nazism, he criticized anti-Semitism, [[pan-Germanism]] and, to a lesser extent, [[nationalism]].<ref>Keith Ansell-Pearson, ''An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihilist,'' Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp 33–34.</ref> Thus, he broke with his editor in 1886 because of his opposition to his editor's anti-Semitic stances, and his rupture with [[Richard Wagner]], expressed in ''[[The Case of Wagner]]'' and ''[[Nietzsche contra Wagner]],'' both of which he wrote in 1888, had much to do with Wagner's endorsement of pan-Germanism and anti-Semitism—and also of his rallying to Christianity. In a 29 March 1887 letter to [[Theodor Fritsch]], Nietzsche mocked anti-Semites, Fritsch, [[Eugen Dühring]], Wagner, Ebrard, [[Adolf Wahrmund|Wahrmund]], and the leading advocate of pan-Germanism, [[Paul de Lagarde]], who would become, along with Wagner and [[Houston Chamberlain]], the main official influences of [[Nazism]].<ref name=Bataille /> This 1887 letter to Fritsch ended by: "And finally, how do you think I feel when the name Zarathustra is mouthed by anti-Semites?"<ref>[http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20150815060910/http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/nlett1887.htm March 29, 1887 letter] to [[Theodor Fritsch]] {{in lang|en}}</ref>

=== Critique of mass culture ===
Friedrich Nietzsche held a pessimistic view on modern society and culture. His views stand against the concept of popular culture. He believed the press and mass culture led to conformity and brought about mediocrity. Nietzsche saw a lack of intellectual progress, leading to the decline of the human species. According to Nietzsche, individuals needed to overcome this form of mass culture. He believed some people were able to become superior individuals through the use of will power. By rising above mass culture, society would produce higher, brighter and healthier human beings.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kellner |first=Douglas |title=Nietzsche's Critique of Mass Culture |journal=International Studies in Philosophy |year=1999 |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=77–89 |doi=10.5840/intstudphil199931353 |url=http://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=intstudphil&id=intstudphil_1999_0031_0003_0077_0089&onlyautologin=true}}</ref>

== Reading and influence ==
[[File:Nietzsche Archives in Weimar.jpg|thumb|The residence of Nietzsche's last three years along with archive in [[Weimar]], Germany, which holds many of Nietzsche's papers]]
{{Main|Library of Friedrich Nietzsche}}

A trained philologist, Nietzsche had a thorough knowledge of [[Greek philosophy]]. He read [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[Plato]], [[John Stuart Mill|Mill]], [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]] and [[Afrikan Spir|Spir]],<ref>Brobjer, Thomas. "Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library, 1885–1889". Published in ''Journal of History of Ideas.''</ref> who became his main opponents in his philosophy, and later [[Baruch Spinoza]], whom he saw as his "precursor" in many respects<ref>Letter to Franz Overbeck, 30 July 1881</ref> but as a personification of the "ascetic ideal" in others. However, Nietzsche referred to Kant as a "moral fanatic", Plato as "boring", Mill as a "blockhead", and of Spinoza he said: "How much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray?"{{Sfn|Russell|2004|pp=693–97}} He likewise expressed contempt for British author [[George Eliot]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Thomas J. |last=Joudrey |title=The Defects of Perfectionism: Nietzsche, Eliot, and the Irrevocability of Wrong |journal=[[Philological Quarterly]] |volume=96 |issue=1 |year=2017 |pages=77–104}}</ref>

Nietzsche's philosophy, while innovative and revolutionary, was indebted to many predecessors. While at Basel, Nietzsche offered lecture courses on pre-Platonic philosophers for several years, and the text of this lecture series has been characterized as a "lost link" in the development of his thought. "In it concepts such as the will to power, the eternal return of the same, the overman, gay science, self-overcoming and so on receive rough, unnamed formulations and are linked to specific pre-Platonics, especially Heraclitus, who emerges as a pre-Platonic Nietzsche."{{Sfn|Nietzsche|2001|p=xxxvii}} The [[pre-Socratic]] thinker [[Heraclitus]] was known for the rejection of the concept of [[being]] as a constant and eternal principle of universe, and his embrace of "flux" and incessant change. His symbolism of the world as "child play" marked by amoral spontaneity and lack of definite rules was appreciated by Nietzsche.{{Sfn|Roochnik|2004|pp=37–39}} From his Heraclitean sympathy, Nietzsche was also a vociferous detractor of [[Parmenides]], who opposed Heraclitus and believed all world is a single Being with no change at all.{{Sfn|Roochnik|2004|p=48}}

In his ''Egotism in German Philosophy'', [[George Santayana|Santayana]] claimed that Nietzsche's whole philosophy was a reaction to Schopenhauer. Santayana wrote that Nietzsche's work was "an emendation of that of Schopenhauer. The will to live would become the will to dominate; pessimism founded on reflection would become optimism founded on courage; the suspense of the will in contemplation would yield to a more biological account of intelligence and taste; finally in the place of pity and asceticism (Schopenhauer's two principles of morals) Nietzsche would set up the duty of asserting the will at all costs and being cruelly but beautifully strong. These points of difference from Schopenhauer cover the whole philosophy of Nietzsche."{{Sfn|Santayana|1916|p=114}}

Nietzsche expressed admiration for 17th-century French moralists such as [[François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)|La Rochefoucauld]], [[Jean de La Bruyère|La Bruyère]] and [[Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues|Vauvenargues]],<ref>Brendan Donnellan, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/404869 "Nietzsche and La Rochefoucauld"] in ''[[The German Quarterly]]'', Vol. 52, No. 3 (May 1979), pp. 303–18</ref> as well as for [[Stendhal]].{{Sfn|Nietzsche|1888d|loc="Why I am So Clever", § 3}} The [[organicism]] of [[Paul Bourget]] influenced Nietzsche,<ref>Johan Grzelczyk, [http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4 "Féré et Nietzsche: au sujet de la décadence"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061116213847/http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4 |date=16 November 2006 }}, ''HyperNietzsche'', 1 November 2005 {{in lang|fr}}. Grzelczyk quotes Jacques Le Rider, ''Nietzsche en France. De la fin du XIXe siècle au temps présent'', Paris, PUF, 1999, pp. 8–9</ref> as did that of [[Rudolf Virchow]] and [[Alfred Espinas]].<ref>Johan Grzelczyk, [http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4 "Féré et Nietzsche: au sujet de la décadence"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061116213847/http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4 |date=16 November 2006 }}, ''HyperNietzsche'', 1 November 2005 {{in lang|fr}}. Grzelczyk quotes B. Wahrig-Schmidt, "Irgendwie, jedenfalls physiologisch. Friedrich Nietzsche, Alexandre Herzen (fils) und Charles Féré 1888" in ''Nietzsche Studien'', Band 17, Berlin: [[Walter de Gruyter]], 1988, p. 439</ref> Nietzsche wrote in a letter in 1867 that he was trying to improve his German style of writing with the help of [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing|Lessing]], [[Georg Christoph Lichtenberg|Lichtenberg]] and Schopenhauer. It was probably Lichtenberg (along with [[Paul Rée]]) whose aphoristic style of writing contributed to Nietzsche's own use of [[aphorism]] instead of an essay.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=V4DDxmM0T9EC&pg=PA58&dq=Nietzsche+neo-Kantians |title=Nietzsche's Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography |first=Brobjer |last=Thomas|isbn=978-0-252-09062-2 |year=2010 }}</ref> Nietzsche early learned of [[Darwinism]] through [[Friedrich Albert Lange]].<ref name=Fouillee>[http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Note_sur_Nietzsche_et_Lange_:_%C2%AB_le_retour_%C3%A9ternel_%C2%BB Note sur Nietzsche et Lange: "Le retour éternel"], [[Albert Fouillée]], ''Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger''. An. 34. Paris 1909. T. 67, S. 519–25 (on French Wikisource)</ref> The essays of [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] had a profound influence on Nietzsche, who "loved Emerson from first to last",<ref>Walter Kaufmann, intr. p. 11 of his transl. of 'The Gay Science'</ref> wrote "Never have I felt so much at home in a book", and called him "[the] author who has been richest in ideas in this century so far".<ref>Notebooks, cf. ''The Gay Science'', Walter Kaufmann transl, p. 12</ref> [[Hippolyte Taine]] influenced Nietzsche's view on [[Rousseau]] and [[Napoleon]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=BSQJgIKTJ7QC&pg=PA194&dq=Nietzsche+Hippolyte+Taine |title=Nietzsche, God, and the Jews: His Critique of Judeo-Christianity in Relation to the Nazi Myth |first=Santaniello |last=Weaver|isbn=978-0-7914-2136-9 |year=1994 }}</ref> Notably, he also read some of the posthumous works of [[Charles Baudelaire]],<ref name="Mazzino Montinari 1996">Mazzino Montinari, ''"La Volonté de puissance" n'existe pas'', Éditions de l'Éclat, 1996, § 13</ref> [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]]'s ''My Religion'', [[Ernest Renan]]'s ''Life of Jesus'' and [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]]'s ''Demons''.<ref name="Mazzino Montinari 1996" />{{Sfn|Kaufmann|1974|pp=306–40}} Nietzsche called Dostoyevsky "the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn".{{Sfn|Nietzsche|1888b|loc=§ 45}} While Nietzsche never mentions [[Max Stirner]], the similarities in their ideas have prompted a minority of interpreters to suggest a [[Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner|relationship between the two]].<ref>[[Karl Löwith]], ''From Hegel to Nietzsche'', New York, 1964, p. 187.</ref><ref>S. Taylor, ''Left Wing Nietzscheans, The Politics of German Expressionism 1910–1920'', Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 1990, p. 144.</ref><ref>G. Deleuze, ''[[Nietzsche and Philosophy]]'' (transl. Hugh Tomlinson), 2006, pp. 153–54.</ref><ref>R.C. Solomon & K.M. Higgins, ''The Age of German Idealism'', Routledge, 1993, p. 300.</ref><ref>R.A. Samek, ''The Meta Phenomenon'', New York, 1981, p. 70.</ref><ref>T. Goyens, ''Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City'', Illinois, 2007, p. 197.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html |first=Bernd A. |last=Laska |title=Nietzsche's initial crisis |journal=Germanic Notes and Reviews |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=109–33}}</ref> In 1861 Nietzsche wrote an enthusiastic essay on his "favorite poet", [[Friedrich Hölderlin]], mostly forgotten at that time.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/holderli.htm |title=Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843)|website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi)|first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20141226203214/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/holderli.htm |archivedate=26 December 2014 |url-status=dead |df= }}</ref> He also expressed deep appreciation for Stifter's ''[[Der Nachsommer|Indian Summer]]'',<ref name="Meyer-Sickendiek, Burkhard 2004. p. 323">Meyer-Sickendiek, Burkhard, "Nietzsche's Aesthetic Solution to the Problem of Epigonism in the Nineteenth Century", ed. Paul Bishop, ''Nietzsche and Antiquity: His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition'', Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2004. p. 323</ref> Byron's ''[[Manfred]]'' and Twain's ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer|Tom Sawyer]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=Eh4YJfNeO7QC&pg=PA19&dq=Nietzsche+Adventures+of+Tom+Sawyer |title=Nietzsche, Philosopher of the Perilous Perhaps |first=Peery |last=Rebekah|isbn=978-0-87586-644-4 |year=2008 }}</ref>

== Reception and legacy ==
{{Main|Influence and reception of Friedrich Nietzsche}}
[[File:Friederich Nietzsche.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of Nietzsche by [[Edvard Munch]], 1906]]
[[File:Nietzsche-Denkmal Naumburg 2013.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Statue of Nietzsche in Naumburg]]

Nietzsche's works did not reach a wide readership during his active writing career. However, in 1888 the influential Danish critic [[Georg Brandes]] aroused considerable excitement about Nietzsche through a series of lectures he gave at the [[University of Copenhagen]]. In the years after Nietzsche's death in 1900, his works became better known, and readers have responded to them in complex and sometimes controversial ways.<ref>See [https://archive.org/stream/encyclopaediabri19chisrich#page/672/mode/1up 1910 article from the Encyclopædia Britannica]</ref> Many Germans eventually discovered his appeals for greater [[individualism]] and personality development in ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'', but responded to them divergently. He had some following among left-wing Germans in the 1890s; in 1894–1895 German conservatives wanted to ban his work as [[subversive]]. During the late 19th century [[Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche's ideas were commonly associated with anarchist movements]] and appear to have had influence within them, particularly in France and the United States.<ref>O. Ewald, "German Philosophy in 1907", in ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 17, No. 4, July 1908, pp. 400–26.</ref><ref>T.A. Riley, "Anti-Statism in German Literature, as Exemplified by the Work of John Henry Mackay", in ''PMLA'', Vol. 62, No. 3, September 1947, pp. 828–43.</ref><ref>C.E. Forth, "Nietzsche, Decadence, and Regeneration in France, 1891–1895", in ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 54, No. 1, January 1993, pp. 97–117.</ref> [[H.L. Mencken]] produced the first book on Nietzsche in English in 1907, ''[[The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche]]'', and in 1910 a book of translated paragraphs from Nietzsche, increasing knowledge of his philosophy in the United States.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/gistnietzsche00mencgoog |title=The Gist of Nietzsche |first=H.L. |last=Mencken |year=1910 |publisher=Boston, J.W. Luce & company}}</ref> Nietzsche is known today as a precursor to [[existentialism]], [[post-structuralism]] and [[Postmodern philosophy|postmodernism]].<ref>{{Citation |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/#1 |title=Postmodernism|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|year=2015}}</ref>

[[W.B. Yeats]] and [[Arthur Symons]] described Nietzsche as the intellectual heir to [[William Blake]].<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Romantics of 1909: Arthur Symons, Pierre Lasserre and T.E. Hulme |first=Bénédicte |last=Coste |date=15 December 2016 |issn=1638-1718 |journal=E-rea |volume=14 |issue=1 |doi=10.4000/erea.5609}}</ref> Symons went on to compare the ideas of the two thinkers in ''[[The Symbolist Movement in Literature]]'', while Yeats tried to raise awareness of Nietzsche in Ireland.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The First Moderns |last=Everdell |first=William |year=1998 |publisher=U Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=978-0-226-22481-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780226224817/page/508 508] |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780226224817/page/508 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.fathom.com/feature/61007/ |title=Joyce and Nietzsche |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612202020/http://www.fathom.com/feature/61007/ |archivedate=12 June 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=N9H1vjyOMswC&pg=PA231&dq=Arthur+Symons+Nietzsche |title=Nietzsche:Imagery and thoughts|isbn=978-0-520-03577-5|last1=Pasley|first1=Malcolm|year=1978}}</ref> A similar notion was espoused by [[W.H. Auden]] who wrote of Nietzsche in his ''New Year Letter'' (released in 1941 in ''[[The Double Man (book)|The Double Man]]''): "O masterly [[debunker]] of our liberal fallacies [...] all your life you stormed, like your English forerunner Blake".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/dispatchesfromfr00forr |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/dispatchesfromfr00forr/page/39 39] |quote=masterly debunker of our liberal fallacies. |title=Dispatches from the Freud Wars|publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-53960-0|last1=Forrester|first1=John|year=1997}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/germanyasmodelmo0000argy |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/germanyasmodelmo0000argy/page/130 130] |quote=W.H. Auden Nietzsche. |title=Germany as model and monster: Allusions in English fiction|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP |isbn=978-0-7735-2351-7|last1=Argyle|first1=Gisela|year=2002}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WokrAAAAYAAJ|title=The Double Man|first=Wystan Hugh|last=Auden|date=1 June 1979|publisher=Greenwood Press|via=Google Books|isbn=978-0-313-21073-0}}</ref> Nietzsche made an impact on composers during the 1890s. Writer on music [[Donald Mitchell (writer)|Donald Mitchell]] notes that [[Gustav Mahler]] was "attracted to the poetic fire of Zarathustra, but repelled by the intellectual core of its writings". He also quotes Mahler himself, and adds that he was influenced by Nietzsche's conception and affirmative approach to nature, which Mahler presented in his [[Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)|Third Symphony]] using [[Zarathustra's roundelay]]. [[Frederick Delius]] produced a piece of choral music, ''[[A Mass of Life]]'', based on a text of ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'', while [[Richard Strauss]] (who also based his [[Also sprach Zarathustra (Strauss)|''Also sprach Zarathustra'']] on the same book), was only interested in finishing "another chapter of symphonic autobiography".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=yKCq909vSpwC&pg=PA99&dq=Mahler+Nietzsche+influence |title=Gustav Mahler: The Early Years |first=Mitchell |last=Donald|isbn=978-0-520-04141-7 |year=1980 }}</ref> Famous writers and poets influenced by Nietzsche include [[André Gide]], [[August Strindberg]], [[Robinson Jeffers]], [[Pío Baroja]], [[D.H. Lawrence]], [[Edith Södergran]] and [[Yukio Mishima]].

Nietzsche was an early influence on the poetry of [[Rainer Maria Rilke]]. [[Knut Hamsun]] counted Nietzsche, along with [[August Strindberg|Strindberg]] and Dostoyevsky, as one of his primary influences.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n23/james-wood/addicted-to-unpredictability |title=Addicted to Unpredictability |pages=16–19 |first=Wood |last=James|newspaper=London Review of Books |date=26 November 1998 }}</ref> Author [[Jack London]] wrote that he was more stimulated by Nietzsche than by any other writer.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=fbrV_fwgcq4C&pg=PA44&dq=Nietzsche+Jack+London |title=Jack London's Racial Lives|isbn=978-0-8203-3970-2|last1=Reesman|first1=Jeanne Campbell|date=15 March 2011}}</ref> Critics have suggested that the character of David Grief in ''[[A Son of the Sun (novel)|A Son of the Sun]]'' was based on Nietzsche.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=7q2AHsyTuo4C&pg=PR19&dq=Nietzsche+Jack+London |title=A Sun of the Son|isbn=978-0-8061-3362-1|last1=London|first1=Jack|year=2001}}</ref> Nietzsche's influence on [[Muhammad Iqbal]] is most evidenced in ''[[The Secrets of the Self|Asrar-i-Khudi]] (The Secrets of the Self)''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=ftpGJy0DPbYC&pg=PA57&dq=Iqbal+Nietzsche |title=Nietzsche and Islam |first=Jackson |last=Ray|isbn=978-1-134-20500-4 |year=2007 }}</ref> [[Wallace Stevens]]<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/stevens.php |title=Poets of Cambridge |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120429020746/http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/stevens.php |archivedate=29 April 2012 }}</ref> was another reader of Nietzsche, and elements of Nietzsche's philosophy were found throughout Stevens's poetry collection ''[[Harmonium (poetry collection)|Harmonium]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://wiki.geneseo.edu/display/essaysarticles/Wallace+Stevens%27+Harmonium#WallaceStevens%27Harmonium-TheInfluenceofNietzsche|title=Wallace Stevens' Harmonium – Collaborative Essays and Articles – Geneseo Wiki|website=wiki.geneseo.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=3m7_U1UdeRgC&pg=PA112&dq=Wallace+Stevens+Nietzsche |title=The Cambridge Companion to Wallace Stevens|isbn=978-1-139-82754-6|last1=Serio|first1=John N|year= 2007}}</ref> [[Olaf Stapledon]] was influenced by the idea of the ''Übermensch'' and it is a central theme in his books ''[[Odd John]]'' and ''[[Sirius (novel)|Sirius]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/biography.html |title=Olaf Stapleton |access-date=22 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090717120543/http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/biography.html |archive-date=17 July 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In Russia, Nietzsche has influenced [[Russian symbolism]]<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=Fo2QqyyFCR4C&pg=PA12&dq=Merezhovsky+Nietzsche |title=Music and Literature in Silver Age Russia: Mikhail Kuzmin and Alexander Scriabin |first=Damare |last=Brad|isbn=978-0-549-81910-3 }}</ref> and figures such as [[Dmitry Merezhkovsky]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=Ppvr3LZ8o2wC&pg=PA35&dq=Merezhkovsky+Nietzsche |title=New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism |first=Rosenthal |last=Bernice|isbn=978-0-271-04658-7 |year=2010 }}</ref> [[Andrei Bely]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=f5cUEHHchNAC&pg=PA117&dq=Andrei+Bely+Nietzsche |title=Nietzsche and Soviet Culture: Ally and Adversary |first=Rosenthal |last=Bernice|isbn=978-0-521-45281-6 |date=1994 }}</ref> [[Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet)|Vyacheslav Ivanov]] and [[Alexander Scriabin]] have all incorporated or discussed parts of Nietzsche philosophy in their works. [[Thomas Mann]]'s novel ''[[Death in Venice]]''<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=hJZm5QWgxC4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Thomas+Mann+Nietzsche#v=onepage&q=Nietzsche |title=Thomas Mann's Death in Venice|isbn=978-0-313-31159-8|last1=Shookman|first1=Ellis|year=2004}}</ref> shows a use of Apollonian and Dionysian, and in ''[[Doctor Faustus (novel)|Doctor Faustus]]'' Nietzsche was a central source for the character of Adrian Leverkühn.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.nietzschecircle.com/essayArchive5.html |title=Nietzsche Circle |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130123020205/http://nietzschecircle.com/essayArchive5.html |archivedate=23 January 2013 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/12474|title=Doctor Faustus|website=medhum.med.nyu.edu}}</ref> [[Hermann Hesse]], similarly, in his ''[[Narcissus and Goldmund]]'' presents two main characters in the sense of Apollonian and Dionysian as the two opposite yet intertwined spirits. Painter [[Giovanni Segantini]] was fascinated by ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'', and he drew an illustration for the first Italian translation of the book. The Russian painter [[Lena Hades]] created the oil painting cycle ''[[Also Sprach Zarathustra (painting)|Also Sprach Zarathustra]]'' dedicated to the book ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.academic.ru/book.nsf/58297551/|title=Book: Ницше Фридрих Вильгельм. Так говорил Заратустра (с репродукциями картин Л. Хейдиз из цикла "Так говорил Заратустра" )|website=Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias}}</ref>

By [[World War I]], Nietzsche had acquired a reputation as an inspiration for both right-wing German [[militarism]] and leftist politics. German soldiers received copies of ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' as gifts during World War I.<ref>{{Citation |first=Steven E. |last=Aschheim |quote="[a]bout 150,000 copies of a specially durable wartime ''Zarathustra'' were distributed to the troops" |title=The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890–1990 |place=Berkeley and Los Angeles |year=1992 |page=135}}</ref>{{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=8}} The [[Dreyfus affair]] provides a contrasting example of his reception: the French antisemitic Right labelled the Jewish and leftist intellectuals who defended [[Alfred Dreyfus]] as "Nietzscheans".<ref>Schrift, A.D. (1995). ''Nietzsche's French Legacy: A Genealogy of Poststructuralism''. Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-91147-8}}.</ref> Nietzsche had a distinct appeal for many [[Zionism|Zionist]] thinkers around the start of the 20th century, most notable being [[Ahad Ha'am]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100486340 |title=Nietzsche and Zion |first=Golomb |last=Jacob|isbn=978-0-8014-3762-5 |publisher=Cornell University Press |date=2004 }}</ref> [[Hillel Zeitlin]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=188 |title=Nietzsche and Zion |first=Golomb |last=Jacob}}</ref> [[Micha Josef Berdyczewski]], [[A.D. Gordon]]<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=TOMrUcFiU0UC&pg=PA48&dq=A.+D.+Gordon+Nietzsche |title=The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites nor Crusaders|isbn=978-1-139-50520-8|last1=Ohana|first1=David|year= 2012}}</ref> and [[Martin Buber]], who went so far as to extoll Nietzsche as a "creator" and "emissary of life".{{Sfn |Golomb |1997 |pp=234–35}} [[Chaim Weizmann]] was a great admirer of Nietzsche; the first president of Israel sent Nietzsche's books to his wife, adding a comment in a letter that "This was the best and finest thing I can send to you."<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=9RHqWPIC0QQC&pg=PA419&dq=Andre+Malraux+Nietzsche |title=Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist |first=Kaufmann |last=Walter|isbn=978-1-4008-2016-0 |year= 2008 }}</ref> [[Israel Eldad]], the ideological chief of the [[Stern Gang]] that fought the British in [[Mandatory Palestine|Palestine]] in the 1940s, wrote about Nietzsche in his underground newspaper and later translated most of Nietzsche's books into [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]].<ref>Zev Golan, ''God, Man and Nietzsche'', iUniverse, 2007, p. 169: "It would be most useful if our youth climbed, even if only briefly, to Zarathustra's heights{{nbsp}}..."</ref> [[Eugene O'Neill]] remarked that ''Zarathustra'' influenced him more than any other book he ever read. He also shared Nietzsche's view of [[tragedy]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00mich |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00mich/page/19 19] |quote=Nietzsche Eugene O'Neill. |title=The Cambridge Companion to Eugene O'Neill|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-55645-3|last1=Press|first1=Cambridge University|year= 1998}}</ref> Plays ''[[The Great God Brown]]'' and ''[[Lazarus Laughed]]'' are an example of Nietzsche's influence on O'Neill.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.eoneill.com/library/ericlevin/i.htm+Lazarus+Laughed+Nietzsche&cd=1&ct=clnk&gl=ba|title=Postomodern considerations of Nietzschean perspectivism}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=LnnSlZMp0oAC&pg=PA201&dq=Lazarus+Laughed+Nietzsche |title=Eugene O'Neill's America: Desire Under Democracy|isbn=978-0-226-14882-3|last1=Diggins|first1=John Patrick|year= 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=g1whggReJx4C&pg=PA40&dq=Nietzsche+Eugene+O%27Neill |title=Eugene O'Neill:A Playwright's theatre|isbn=978-0-7864-1713-1|last1=Törnqvist|first1=Egil|year=2004}}</ref> Nietzsche's influence on the works of [[Frankfurt School]] philosophers [[Max Horkheimer]] and [[Theodor W. Adorno]]<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/adorno/ |title=Adorno, Theodor}}</ref> can be seen in the popular ''[[Dialectic of Enlightenment]]''. Adorno summed up Nietzsche's philosophy as expressing the "humane in a world in which humanity has become a sham".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=A2NxFq1C7uIC&pg=PT351&dq=I+have+come+to+the+conclusion+that+Nietzsche+is+probably+a+greater+thinker+than+Marx |title=The Idea of Decline in Western History |first=Herman |last=Arthur|isbn=978-1-4516-0313-2 |year= 2010 }}</ref>

Nietzsche's growing prominence suffered a severe setback when his works became closely associated with [[Adolf Hitler]] and [[Nazi Germany]]. Many political leaders of the twentieth century were at least superficially familiar with Nietzsche's ideas, although it is not always possible to determine whether they actually read his work. It is debated among scholars whether Hitler read Nietzsche, although if he did his reading of him may not have been extensive.<ref>"We know, from his [Hitler's] secretary, that he could quote Schopenhauer by the page, and the other German philosopher of willpower, Nietzsche, whose works he afterwards presented to [[Mussolini]], was often on his lips." [[Hugh Trevor-Roper|Trevor Roper, H.]] ''[[The Mind of Adolf Hitler]]'', p. xxxvii. Introductory essay for ''Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944 Secret Conversations''. Enigma Books (2008)</ref><ref>"'Landsberg,' Hitler told [[Hans Frank]], was his 'university paid for by the state.' He read, he said, everything he could get hold of: Nietzsche, [[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]], [[Leopold von Ranke|Ranke]], [[Heinrich von Treitschke|Treitschke]], [[Karl Marx|Marx]], [[Otto von Bismarck|Bismarck]]'s Thoughts and Memories, and the war memoirs of German and allied generals and statesmen.{{nbsp}}... But Hitler's reading and reflection were anything but academic, doubtless he did read much. However, as was noted in an earlier chapter, he made clear in [[Mein Kampf|My Struggle]] that reading for him had purely an instrumental purpose. He read not for knowledge or enlightenment, but for confirmation of his own preconceptions." Kershaw, Ian Hitler: ''Hubris 1889–1936''. W.W. Norton p. 240</ref><ref>Weaver Santaniello, ''Nietzsche, God, and the Jews'', [[SUNY Press]], 1994, p. 41: "Hitler probably never read a word of Nietzsche."</ref><ref>Berel Lang, ''Post-Holocaust: Interpretation, Misinterpretation, and the Claims of History'', Indiana University Press, 2005, p. 162: "Arguably, Hitler himself never read a word of Nietzsche; certainly, if he did read him, it was not extensively."</ref> He was a frequent visitor to the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and used expressions of Nietzsche's, such as "lords of the earth" in ''[[Mein Kampf]]''.<ref>William L. Shirer, ''[[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]]: A History of Nazi Germany'', Touchstone, 1959, pp. 100–01</ref> The Nazis made selective use of Nietzsche's philosophy. [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini]],<ref>Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, ''Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy'', University of California Press, 2000, p. 44: "In 1908 he presented his conception of the superman's role in modern society in a writing on Nietzsche titled "The Philosophy of Force".</ref><ref>Philip Morgan, ''Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945'', Routledge, 2003, p. 21: "We know that Mussolini had read Nietzsche"</ref> [[Charles de Gaulle]]<ref>J.L. Gaddis, P.H. Gordon, E.R. May, J. Rosenberg, ''Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb'', Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 217: "The son of a history teacher, de Gaulle read voraciously as a boy and young man—[[Jacques Bainville]], [[Henri Bergson]], Friederich {{sic}} Nietzsche, [[Maurice Barres]]—and was steeped in conservative French historical and philosophical traditions."</ref> and [[Huey P. Newton]]<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=caWPDd6PuaMC&q=Nietzsche |title=We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party |first=Abu-Jamal |last=Mumia|isbn=978-0-89608-718-7 |year=2004 }}</ref> read Nietzsche. [[Richard Nixon]] read Nietzsche with "curious interest", and his book ''Beyond Peace'' might have taken its title from Nietzsche's book ''Beyond Good and Evil'' which Nixon read beforehand.<ref>{{Citation |first=Monica |last=Crowley |title=Nixon in Winter |publisher=IB Tauris |year=1998 |page=351 |quote=He read with curious interest the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche [...] Nixon asked to borrow my copy of ''Beyond Good and Evil'', a title that inspired the title of his final book, ''Beyond Peace''.}}</ref> [[Bertrand Russell]] wrote that Nietzsche had exerted great influence on philosophers and on people of literary and artistic culture, but warned that the attempt to put Nietzsche's philosophy of aristocracy into practice could only be done by an organization similar to the Fascist or the Nazi party.<ref name="Russell 1945 766 & 770" />

A decade after World War II, there was a revival of Nietzsche's philosophical writings thanks to exhaustive translations and analyses by [[Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Walter Kaufmann]] and [[R.J. Hollingdale]]. Others, well known philosophers in their own right, wrote commentaries on Nietzsche's philosophy, including [[Martin Heidegger]], who produced a four-volume study, and [[Lev Shestov]], who wrote a book called ''Dostoyevski, Tolstoy and Nietzsche'' where he portrays Nietzsche and Dostoyevski as the "thinkers of tragedy".<ref>{{Cite book |title=Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche |first=Shestov |last=Lev|isbn=978-0-8214-0053-1}}</ref> [[Georg Simmel]] compares Nietzsche's importance to ethics to that of [[Copernicus]] for [[cosmology]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.philosophynow.org/issues/29/Nietzsche_and_Germany |title=Nietzsche & Germany |first=Sorgner |last=Stefan}}</ref> Sociologist [[Ferdinand Tönnies]] read Nietzsche avidly from his early life, and later frequently discussed many of his concepts in his own works. Nietzsche has influenced philosophers such as Heidegger, [[Jean-Paul Sartre]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=D6fM0jqDVFgC&pg=PA142&dq=Nietzsche+Sartre+influence |title=Philosophy in Literature|isbn=978-0-8386-3652-7|last1=Rickman|first1=Hans Peter|year=1996}}</ref> [[Oswald Spengler]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Oswald_Spengler |title=Oswald Spengler |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520200025/http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Oswald_Spengler |archivedate=20 May 2013 }}</ref> [[George Grant (philosopher)|George Grant]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/george-grant|title=George Grant|website=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]]|accessdate=August 31, 2019}}</ref> [[Emil Cioran]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=sJp6tGCgO-8C&pg=PA17&dq=Emil+Cioran+Nietzsche |title=Romanian Philosophical Culture, Globalization, and Education|isbn=978-1-56518-242-4|last1=Tat|first1=Alin|last2=Popenici|first2=Stefan|year=2008}}</ref> [[Albert Camus]], [[Ayn Rand]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://sites.google.com/wisc.edu/lesterhunt|title=Lester Hunt's Web Page|website=sites.google.com}}</ref> [[Jacques Derrida]], [[Leo Strauss]],<ref>{{Cite book |first=Laurence |last=Lampert |title=Leo Strauss and Nietzsche |location=Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1996}}</ref> [[Max Scheler]], [[Michel Foucault]] and [[Bernard Williams]]. Camus described Nietzsche as "the only artist to have derived the extreme consequences of an aesthetics of the [[Absurdism|absurd]]".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/?id=bmq7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA186&dq=Kafka+Nietzsche#v=onepage&q=Camus%20Nietzsche |title=The Absurd in Literature|isbn=978-0-7190-7410-3|last1=Cornwell|first1=Neil|year=2006}}</ref> [[Paul Ricœur]] called Nietzsche one of the masters of the "school of suspicion", alongside [[Karl Marx]] and Sigmund Freud.<ref name="Ricœur">{{Cite book |author=Ricœur, Paul |title=Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven and London |year=1970 |page=32 |isbn=978-0-300-02189-9 |oclc=|doi=}}</ref> [[Carl Jung]] was also influenced by Nietzsche.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6163.html |title=Jarrett, J.L., ed.: Jung's Seminar on Nietzsche's Zarathustra: (Abridged edition) (paperback) |publisher=Press.princeton.edu |accessdate=22 August 2014|isbn=978-0-691-01738-9 |date=23 November 1997 }}</ref> In ''[[Memories, Dreams, Reflections]]'', a biography transcribed by his secretary, he cites Nietzsche as a large influence.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.depthinsights.com/Depth-Insights-scholarly-ezine/e-zine-issue-3-fall-2012/jungs-reception-of-friedrich-nietzsche-a-roadmap-for-the-uninitiated-by-dr-ritske-rensma/ |title=Jung's Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche: A Roadmap for the Uninitiated by Dr. Ritske Rensma |publisher=Depth Insights |accessdate=22 August 2014}}</ref> Aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, especially his ideas of the self and his relation to society, also run through much of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century thought.<ref name=Belliotti>Raymond A. Belliotti, ''Jesus or Nietzsche: How Should We Live Our Lives?'' (Rodopi, 2013).</ref><ref>Ronald A. Kuipers, "Turning Memory into Prophecy: Roberto Unger and Paul Ricoeur on the Human Condition Between Past and Future", ''The Heythrop Journal'' (2011): 1–10.</ref> His deepening of the romantic-heroic tradition of the nineteenth century, for example, as expressed in the ideal of the "grand striver" appears in the work of thinkers from [[Cornelius Castoriadis]] to [[Roberto Mangabeira Unger]].<ref>Richard Rorty, "Unger, Castoriadis, and the Romance of a National Future", ''Northwestern University Law Review'' 82 (1988 1987): 39.</ref> For Nietzsche this grand striver overcomes obstacles, engages in epic struggles, pursues new goals, embraces recurrent novelty, and transcends existing structures and contexts.<ref name=Belliotti />{{rp|195}}

== Works ==
[[File:Nietzsche-Stein 01.jpg|thumb|The ''Nietzsche Stone'', near [[Surlej]], the inspiration for ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'']]
{{Main|Friedrich Nietzsche bibliography}}
{{See also|List of works about Friedrich Nietzsche}}
* ''[[The Birth of Tragedy]]'' (1872)
* ''[[On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense]]'' (1873)
* ''[[Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks]]'' (1873)
* ''[[Untimely Meditations]]'' (1876)
* ''[[Human, All Too Human]]'' (1878)
* ''[[The Dawn (book)|The Dawn]]'' (1881)
* ''[[The Gay Science]]'' (1882)
* ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'' (1883)
* ''[[Beyond Good and Evil]]'' (1886)
* ''[[On the Genealogy of Morality]]'' (1887)
* ''[[The Case of Wagner]]'' (1888)
* ''[[Twilight of the Idols]]'' (1888)
* ''[[The Antichrist (book)|The Antichrist]]'' (1888)
* ''[[Ecce Homo (book)|Ecce Homo]] '' (1888; first published in 1908)
* ''[[Nietzsche contra Wagner]]'' (1888)
* ''[[The Will to Power (manuscript)|The Will to Power]]'' (various unpublished manuscripts edited by his sister [[Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche|Elisabeth]]; not recognized as a unified work after ca 1960)

== See also ==
{{Portal|Philosophy|Religion|Germany|Biography}}
{{cols|colwidth=21em}}
* ''[[The Ascent of Man]]''
* [[Difference (poststructuralism)]]
* ''[[Dionysos (opera)|Dionysos]]''
* [[Friedrich Nietzsche and free will]]
* [[Existential nihilism]]
* [[Faith in the Earth]]
* [[Manusmriti]]
* [[Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner]]
* [[Rigveda]]
* [[World riddle]]
{{colend}}

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== Sources ===
; Works cited
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Cate |first=Curtis |title = Friedrich Nietzsche |url=https://archive.org/details/friedrichnietzsc00curt |url-access=registration |publisher=[[The Overlook Press]] |year=2005 |location = Woodstock, NY |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Deleuze |first=Gilles |title=Nietzsche and Philosophy |publisher=Athlone Press |orig-year=1983 |year=2006 |translator = Hugh Tomlinson |isbn = 978-0-485-11233-7 |ref=harv |title-link = Nietzsche and Philosophy }}
* {{cite book |url = https://books.google.com/?id=HBCsgS7k7lAC&pg=PA185&dq=Arnold+Zweig+Nietzsche |title = Nietzsche and Jewish culture |editor-first=Jacob |editor-last=Golomb |publisher=Routledge |year=1997 |ref=harv |isbn = 978-0-415-09512-9 }}
* {{cite book |last=Heidegger |first=Martin |title=The Word of Nietzsche |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |ref=harv |last=Hollingdale |first = R. J. |author-link=R. J. Hollingdale |title = Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy |journal=The Journal of Philosophy |volume=64 |issue=7 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/nietzschemanhisp00holl/page/215 215–219]|url= https://archive.org/details/nietzschemanhisp00holl/page/215|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=1999|jstor= 2024055|isbn=978-0-521-64091-6}}
* {{cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Walter |title=Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist |publisher=Princeton University Press|year=1974|isbn= 978-0-691-01983-3|ref=harv|url= https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00kauf}}
* {{cite book |last=Lampert |first=Laurence |title = Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" |location=New Haven, CT |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1986 |isbn = 978-0-300-04430-0 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Roochnik |first=David |title = Retrieving the Ancients |year=2004 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |author-link=Bertrand Russel |year=2004 |title = A History of Western Philosophy |publisher=Routledge |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |title = Egotism in German Philosophy |chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/egotismingerman00santuoft |chapter=XI |publisher=JM Dent & Sons |location = London & Toronto |last=Santayana |first=George |author-link = George Santayana |year=1916 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |first = Peter R. |last=Sedgwick |title = Nietzsche: the key concepts |location = Routledge, Oxon, England |publisher=Routledge |year=2009 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |first=Kathleen |last=Higgins |title = What Nietzsche Really Said |publisher = Austin, TX: University of Texas; New York, NY: Random House |year=2000 |ref=higgins }}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin|2}}
* {{Citation |last=Arena |first=Leonardo Vittorio |title=Nietzsche in China in the XXth Century |publisher=ebook |year=2012}}
* Babich, Babette E. (1994), ''Nietzsche's Philosophy of Science'', Albany: State University of New York Press.
* {{Citation |last1=Baird |first1=Forrest E |first2=Walter |last2=Kaufmann |author2-link=Walter Kaufmann (philosopher) |title=From Plato to Derrida |publisher=Pearson Prentice Hall |year=2008 |place=Upper Saddle River, NJ |pages=1011–38 |isbn=978-0-13-158591-1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Benson |first=Bruce Ellis |author-link=Bruce Ellis Benson |title=Pious Nietzsche: Decadence and Dionysian Faith |publisher=[[Indiana University Press]] |year=2007 |location=|page=296 |url=|doi=|id=|isbn=}}
* [[Markus Breitschmid|Breitschmid, Markus]], ''Der bauende Geist. Friedrich Nietzsche und die Architektur''. Lucerne: Quart Verlag, 2001, {{ISBN|3-907631-23-4}}
* [[Markus Breitschmid|Breitschmid, Markus]], ''Nietzsche's Denkraum''. Zurich: Edition Didacta, 2006, Hardcover Edition: {{ISBN|978-3-033-01206-6}}; Paperback Edition: {{ISBN|978-3-033-01148-9}}
* Brinton, Crane, ''Nietzsche''. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941; reprint with new preface, epilogue, and blbiography, New York: Harper Torchbooks/The Academy Library, 1965.)
* Brunger, Jeremy. 2015. "[http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2015/08/13/public-opinions-private-laziness-the-epistemological-break-in-nietzsche-jeremy-brunger/ Public Opinions, Private Laziness: The Epistemological Break in Nietzsche]. ''Numero Cinq'' magazine (August).
* Corriero, Emilio Carlo, ''Nietzsche oltre l'abisso. Declinazioni italiane della 'morte di Dio''', [[Marco Valerio Editore|Marco Valerio]], Torino, 2007
* Dod, Elmar, "Der unheimlichste Gast. Die Philosophie des Nihilismus". Marburg: Tectum Verlag 2013. {{ISBN|978-3-8288-3107-0}}. "Der unheimlichste Gast wird heimisch. Die Philosophie des Nihilismus – Evidenzen der Einbildungskraft". (Wissenschaftliche Beiträge Philosophie Bd. 32) Baden – Baden 2019 {{ISBN|978-3-8288-4185-7}}
* {{Cite book |last=Eilon |first=Eli |title=Nietzsche's Principle of Abundance as Guiding Aesthetic Value |publisher=Nietzsche-Studien, December 2001 (30) |pages=200–21}}
* {{Cite book |editor1-link=Ken Gemes |editor1-last=Gemes |editor1-first=Ken |editor2-first=Simon |editor2-last=May |year=2002 |title=Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
* Golan, Zev. ''God, Man and Nietzsche: A Startling Dialogue between Judaism and Modern Philosophers'' (iUniverse, 2007).
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Hunt |first= Lester | editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |year=2008 |publisher= [[SAGE Publications|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi= 10.4135/9781412965811.n217|isbn= 978-1-4129-6580-4 |oclc=750831024| lccn = 2008009151 |pages= 355–56 |chapter= Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900) |title= The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism }}
* Huskinson, Lucy. "Nietzsche and Jung: The whole self in the union of opposites" (London and New York: Routledge, 2004)
* Kaplama, Erman. ''Cosmological Aesthetics through the Kantian Sublime and Nietzschean Dionysian''. Lanham: UPA, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
* [[Mario Kopić|Kopić, Mario]], ''S Nietzscheom o Europi'', Jesenski i Turk, Zagreb, 2001 {{ISBN|978-953-222-016-2}}
* {{Cite book |first=James |last=Luchte |title=Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Before Sunrise |place=London |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4411-1653-6}}
* Magnus and Higgins, "Nietzsche's works and their themes", in ''The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche'', Magnus and Higgins (ed.), University of Cambridge Press, 1996, pp. 21–58. {{ISBN|0-521-36767-0}}
* O'Flaherty, James C., Sellner, Timothy F., Helm, Robert M., "Studies in Nietzsche and the Classical Tradition" ([[University of North Carolina Press]]) 1979 {{ISBN|0-8078-8085-X}}
* O'Flaherty, James C., Sellner, Timothy F., Helm, Robert M., "Studies in Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian Tradition" (University of North Carolina Press) 1985 {{ISBN|0-8078-8104-X}}
* Owen, David. ''Nietzsche, Politics & Modernity'' (London: Sage Publications, 1995).
* Pérez, Rolando. Towards a Genealogy of the Gay Science: From Toulouse and Barcelona to Nietzsche and Beyond. eHumanista/IVITRA. Volume 5, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140924114053/http://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/eHumanista%20IVITRA/Volume%205/Volum%20Regular/7_Perez.pdf
* Porter, James I. "Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future" (Stanford University Press, 2000). {{ISBN|0-8047-3698-7}}
* Emilio Carlo Corriero, "Nietzsche's Death of God and Italian Philosophy". Preface by Gianni Vattimo, Rowman & Littlefield, London – New York, 2016
* {{Cite book |last=Porter |first=James I |title=The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on The Birth of Tragedy |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-8047-3700-5}}
* Ratner-Rosenhagen, Jennifer (2011), ''American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* {{cite news |last=Ruehl |first=Martin |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/nietzsche-ideas-superman-slavery-nihilism-adolf-hitler-nazi-racism-white-supremacy-fascism-a8138396.html |title=In defence of slavery: Nietzsche's Dangerous Thinking |work=[[The Independent]] |date=2 January 2018 |accessdate=18 August 2018}}
* [[T. K. Seung|Seung, T.K.]] ''Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra''. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2005. {{ISBN|0-7391-1130-2}}
* {{Cite book |author=Shapiro, Gary |title=Archaeologies of Vision: Foucault and Nietzsche on Seeing and Saying |location=Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-226-75047-7}}
* {{Cite book |author=Shapiro, Gary |title=Nietzsche's Earth: Great Events, Great Politics |location=Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-226-39445-9}}
* {{Cite book |author=Shapiro, Gary |title=Alcyone: Nietzsche on Gifts, Noise, and Women |location=Albany |publisher=SUNY Press |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-7914-0742-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/alcyonenietzsche0000shap }}
* {{Cite book |author=Tanner, Michael |title=Nietzsche |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-19-287680-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschepastmas00mich }}
* {{Cite book |last=von Vacano |first=Diego |title=The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche and the Making of Aesthetic Political Theory |place=Lanham, MD |publisher=Lexington |year=2007}}.
* Waite, Geoff. (1996), ''Nietzsche's Corps/e: Aesthetics, Prophecy, Politics, or, The Spectacular Technoculture of Everyday Life'', Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
* {{Cite encyclopedia |last=Wicks |first=Robert |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |edition= Fall 2004 |editor=Edward N. Zalta |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/nietzsche/}}
* Young, Julian. ''Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography'' (Cambridge University Press; 2010) 649 pp.
{{Refend}}

== External links ==
{{Sister project links|wikt=no|s=Author:Friedrich Nietzsche|b=no|n=no|voy=no|v=Friedrich Nietzsche annotated bibliography|Friedrich Nietzsche}}
* [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108765/Friedrich-Nietzsche#387226.hook Entry on Nietzsche at the Encyclopædia Britannica]
* [http://www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/nietzsches-autobiography/ Nietzsche's brief autobiography]
* {{Gutenberg author |id=779}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Nietzsche}}
* {{Librivox author |id=411}}
* {{Helveticat}}
* {{cite IEP |url-id=nietzsch |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |last=Wilkerson |first=Dale|year=2009}}
** {{cite IEP |url-id=niet-his |title=Nietzsche's Philosophy of History |last=Jensen |first=Anthony K.}}
* {{cite SEP |url-id=nietzsche |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |last=Wicks |first=Robert|date=14 November 2007}}
** {{cite SEP |url-id=nietzsche-moral-political |title=Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy |last=Leiter |first=Brian |author-link=Brian Leiter |date=27 July 2007}}
* [http://www.nietzschesource.org/ Nietzsche Source: Digital version of the German critical edition of the complete works and Digital facsimile edition of the entire Nietzsche estate]
* [http://www.lexido.com/ Lexido: Searchable Database index of Public Domain editions of all Nietzsche's major works]
* {{curlie|Society/Philosophy/Philosophers/N/Nietzsche,_Friedrich}}
* {{IMSLP|id=Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110421040017/http://www.weple.org/timeline.html#ids=14631,12007,12598,700,10671,9518,37304,95184,&title=8%20German%20Philosophers Timeline of German Philosophers]
* Walter Kaufmann 1960 [https://archive.org/details/NietzscheAndTheCrisisInPhilosophy Prof. Nietzsche and the Crisis in Philosophy] Audio
* {{cite journal |last=Kierans |first=Kenneth |title=On the Unity of Nietzsche's Philosophy |journal=[[Animus (journal)|Animus]] |year=2010 |volume=14 |url=http://www2.swgc.mun.ca/animus/Articles/Volume%2014/9_Kierans.pdf |issn=1209-0689 |accessdate=17 August 2011}}
* [http://www.brianleiternietzsche.blogspot.com/ Brian Leiter's Nietzsche Blog]: News, polls, and discussion about Nietzsche and current events in Nietzsche scholarship from [[Brian Leiter]] (University of Chicago).
* Burkhart Brückner, Robin Pape: [http://biapsy.de/index.php/en/9-biographien-a-z/71-nietzsche-friedrich-wilhelm-e Biography of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche] in: [http://biapsy.de/index.php/en/ Biographical Archive of Psychiatry (BIAPSY)].
* {{PM20|FID=pe/012893}}
* [[Rick Roderick]] (1991) [http://rickroderick.org/200-guide-nietzsche-and-the-postmodern-condition-1991/ Nietzsche and the Postmodern Condition (1991)] Video Lectures
{{Nietzsche|expanded}}
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Western Marxism

2020-02-27T18:10:34Z

Python888: /* List of Western Marxists */

{{Marxism|variants}}
'''Western Marxism''' is a current of [[Marxist theory]] arising from [[Western Europe|Western]] and [[Central Europe]] in the aftermath of the 1917 [[October Revolution]] in [[Russia]] and the ascent of [[Leninism]]. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an interpretation of [[Marxism]] distinct from [[Soviet Marxism|that codified by the Soviet Union]].{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=581}}

The Western Marxists placed more emphasis on Marxism's [[philosophy|philosophical]] and [[sociology|sociological]] aspects, and the origins of [[Karl Marx]]'s thought in the philosophy of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] (for which reason it is sometimes called ''Hegelian Marxism''){{sfn|Jay|1984|p=3}} and what they called the "[[Young Marx]]" (the more humanistic early works of Marx). Although some early figures such as [[György Lukács]] and [[Antonio Gramsci]] had been prominent in political activities, Western Marxism became primarily the reserve of academia, especially after the [[Second World War]]. Prominent figures included [[Walter Benjamin]], [[Theodor Adorno]], [[Max Horkheimer]], and [[Herbert Marcuse]].

Since the 1960s, the concept has been closely associated with the [[New Left]]. Many of the Western Marxists were adherents of [[Marxist humanism]] but the term also encompasses their critics in the form of the [[structural Marxism]] of [[Louis Althusser]].{{sfn|Jay|1984|p=3}}

==Terminology==
The phrase ''Western Marxism'' was first used disparagingly by the [[Third International]] in 1923. [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]] re-appropriated and popularized the term with his book ''Adventures of the Dialectic'' in 1953.{{sfnm |1a1=Jay |1y=1984 |1p=1 |2a1=Merleau-Ponty |2y=1973 |2pp=30–59}} While it is often contrasted with the [[Soviet Marxism|Marxism of the Soviet Union]], Western Marxists have been divided in their opinion of it and other [[Marxist–Leninist state]]s.{{sfn|Jay|1984|pp=7–8}}

==History and distinctive elements==
Although there have been many schools of [[Marxist]] thought that are sharply distinguished from [[Marxism–Leninism]], such as [[Austromarxism]] or the [[left communism]] of [[Antonie Pannekoek]], the theorists who downplay the primacy of economic analysis are considered Western Marxists, as they focus on areas such as [[culture]], [[philosophy]], and [[art]].{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=581}}

György Lukács's ''[[History and Class Consciousness]]'' and [[Karl Korsch]]'s ''Marxism and Philosophy'', published in 1923, are the works that inaugurated Western Marxism.{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=581}} In these books, Lukács and Korsch proffer a Marxism that emphasizes the [[Hegelian]] components of Karl Marx's thought. Marxism is not simply a theory of [[political economy]] that improves on its [[bourgeois]] predecessors. Nor is it a scientific [[sociology]], akin to the [[Natural science|natural sciences]]. Marxism is primarily a critique – a self-conscious transformation of society. Marxism does not make philosophy obsolete, as vulgar Marxism believes; Marxism preserves the truths of philosophy until their revolutionary transformation into reality.{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=582}}

While their work was greeted with hostility by the Third International,{{sfn|Kołakowski|2005|pp=994–995, 1034}} which saw Marxism as a universal science of history and nature,{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=582}} this style of Marxism would be taken up by Germany's [[Frankfurt School]] in the 1930s.{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=581}} The writings of the Italian Communist [[Antonio Gramsci]], produced during this period but not published until much later, are also classified as belonging to Western Marxism.{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=581}}

After the [[Second World War]], a number of thinkers such as [[Lucien Goldmann]], [[Henri Lefebvre]], [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]], and [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] would constitute a French Western Marxism.{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=581}}

Western Marxism often emphasizes the importance of the study of [[culture]], [[class consciousness]] and [[subjectivity]] for an adequate Marxist understanding of society.{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=581}} Western Marxists have thus tended to stress [[Karl Marx]]'s theories of [[commodity fetishism]], [[ideology]] and [[Marx's theory of alienation|alienation]]{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=581}} and have elaborated these with new concepts such as [[false consciousness]], [[Reification (Marxism)|reification]], and [[cultural hegemony]].{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=583}}

Western Marxism also focuses on the works of the [[Young Marx]], where his encounters with Hegel, the [[Young Hegelians]] and [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] reveal what many Western Marxists see as the [[humanist]] philosophical core of Marxism.{{sfn|Jacoby|1991|p=583}} However, the [[structural Marxism]] of [[Louis Althusser]], which attempts to purge Marxism of Hegelianism and humanism, has also been said to belong to Western Marxism, as has the anti-Hegelian Marxism of [[Galvano Della Volpe]].{{sfn|Jay|1984|p=3}}

==Political commitments==
Western Marxists have held a wide variety of political commitments:{{sfn|Jay|1984|pp=7–8}} Lukács and Gramsci were members of Soviet-aligned parties; Korsch, [[Herbert Marcuse]], and [[Guy Debord]] were highly critical of Soviet communism and instead advocated [[council communism]]; Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Althusser and Lefebvre were, at different periods, supporters of the Soviet-aligned [[Communist Party of France]], but all would later become disillusioned with it; [[Ernst Bloch]] lived in and supported the [[Eastern Bloc]], but lost faith in Soviet Communism towards the end of his life. [[Maoism]] and [[Trotskyism]] also influenced Western Marxism. Nicos Poulantzas, a later Western Marxist, was an advocate for [[Eurocommunism]].

==List of Western Marxists==
*[[Louis Althusser]]
*[[Walter Benjamin]]
*[[Daniel Bensaïd]]
*[[Marshall Berman]]
*[[Ernst Bloch]]
*[[Bertolt Brecht]]
*[[Cornelius Castoriadis]]
*[[Lucio Colletti]]
*[[Guy Debord]]
*[[Galvano Della Volpe]]
*[[Frankfurt School]]
**[[Theodor Adorno]]
**[[Erich Fromm]]
**[[Max Horkheimer]]
**[[Leo Löwenthal]]
**[[Herbert Marcuse]]
*[[Joseph Gabel]]
*[[Lucien Goldmann]]
*[[Antonio Gramsci]]
*[[Jürgen Habermas]]
*[[Franz Jakubowski]]
*[[Fredric Jameson]]
*[[Alexandre Kojève]]
*[[Leszek Kołakowski]]
*[[Karl Korsch]]
*[[Karel Kosík]]
*[[Henri Lefebvre]]
*[[Georg Lukács]]
*[[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]]
*[[Antonio Negri]]
*[[Georges Politzer]]
*[[Moishe Postone]]
*[[Nicos Poulantzas]]
*[[Wilhelm Reich]]
*[[Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez]]
*[[Jean-Marie Vincent]]
*[[Jean-Paul Sartre]]

==See also==
{{Portal|Communism|Philosophy}}
*[[Analytical Marxism]]
*[[Budapest School]]
*[[Critical theory]]
*[[Cultural studies]]
*[[Freudo-Marxism]]
*[[Hegelian Marxism]]
*[[Neo-Marxism]]
*[[Praxis school]]
*[[Situationist International]]
*[[Postmodernism]]

==References==
===Footnotes===
{{reflist|22em}}

===Bibliography===
{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}
: {{cite encyclopedia
|last=Jacoby
|first=Russell
|author-link=Russell Jacoby
|year=1991
|title=Western Marxism
|editor1-last=Bottomore
|editor1-first=Tom
|editor1-link=Thomas Bottomore
|editor2-last=Harris
|editor2-first=Laurence
|editor3-last=Kiernan
|editor3-first=V. G.
|editor3-link=Victor Kiernan
|editor4-last=Miliband
|editor4-first=Ralph
|editor4-link=Ralph Miliband
|encyclopedia=The Dictionary of Marxist Thought
|edition=2nd
|location=Oxford
|publisher=Blackwell Publishers
|isbn=978-0-631-16481-4
|ref=harv
}}
: {{cite book
|last=Jay
|first=Martin
|author-link=Martin Jay
|year=1984
|title=Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukacs to Habermas
|location=Cambridge, England
|publisher=Polity Press
|isbn=978-0-7456-0000-0
|ref=harv
}}
: {{cite book
|last=Kołakowski
|first=Leszek
|author-link=Leszek Kołakowski
|year=2005
|title=Main Currents of Marxism
|location=London
|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company
|isbn=978-0-393-32943-8
|ref=harv
}}
: {{cite book
|last=Merleau-Ponty
|first=Maurice
|author-link=Maurice Merleau-Ponty
|year=1973
|title=Adventures of the Dialectic
|url=https://archive.org/details/adventuresofdial00merl/page/30
|url-access=registration
|location=Evanston, Illinois
|publisher=Northwestern University Press
|isbn=978-0-8101-0404-4
|ref=harv
}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}
: {{cite book
|last=Anderson
|first=Perry
|author-link=Perry Anderson
|year=1976
|title=Considerations on Western Marxism
|location=London
|publisher=New Left Books
}}
: {{cite book
|last=Bahr
|first=Ehrhard
|year=2008
|title=Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism
|location=Berkeley, California
|publisher=University of California Press
|isbn=978-0-520-25795-5
}}
: {{cite book
|last=Fetscher
|first=Iring
|author-link=Iring Fetscher
|year=1971
|title=Marx and Marxism
|location=New York
|publisher=Herder and Herder
}}
: {{cite book
|year=1973
|editor1-last=Grahl
|editor1-first=Bart
|editor2-last=Piccone
|editor2-first=Paul
|editor2-link=Paul Piccone
|title=Towards a New Marxism
|location=St. Louis, Missouri
|publisher=Telos Press
}}
: {{cite book
|year=1972
|editor1-last=Howard
|editor1-first=Dick
|editor2-last=Klare
|editor2-first=Karl E.
|editor2-link=Karl Klare
|title=The Unknown Dimension: European Marxism Since Lenin
|location=New York
|publisher=Basic Books
}}
: {{cite book
|last=Jacoby
|first=Russell
|author-link=Russell Jacoby
|year=1981
|title=Dialectic of Defeat: Contours of Western Marxism
|location=Cambridge, England
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511571442
|isbn=978-0-521-23915-8
}}
: {{cite web
|last=Kellner
|first=Douglas
|author-link=Douglas Kellner
|title=Western Marxism
|url=https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/westernmarxismfinal.pdf
|location=Los Angeles
|publisher=University of California, Los Angeles
|access-date=18 January 2020
}}
: {{cite book
|last=Korsch
|first=Karl
|author-link=Karl Korsch
|year=1970
|title=Marxism and Philosophy
|location=New York
|publisher=Monthly Review Press
}}
: {{cite book
|last=Lukács
|first=György
|author-link=György Lukács
|year=1971
|title=History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics
|location=London
|publisher=Merlin Press
}}
: {{cite book
|last=McInnes
|first=Neil
|author-link=Neil McInnes (1924–2017)
|year=1972
|title=The Western Marxists
|location=New York
|publisher=Library Press
}}
: {{cite book
|last=Van der Linden
|first=Marcel
|author-link=Marcel van der Linden
|year=2007
|title=Western Marxism and the Soviet Union
|location=Leiden, Netherlands
|publisher=Brill
|doi=10.1163/ej.9789004158757.i-380
|isbn=978-90-04-15875-7
}}
: {{cite web
|title=Western and Heterodox Marxism
|url=https://marx200.org/en/marxism-think-one-two-many-marxes/western-and-heterodox-marxism
|website=Marx200.org
|access-date=18 January 2020
}}
{{refend}}

{{Use British English Oxford spelling|date=January 2020}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2020}}

[[Category:Marxist schools of thought]]