Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who focused mainly on morality and the meaning of existence. Most people associate him to nihilism, derived from the Latin meaning of nothing. It’s the philosophical doctrine that argues that life has no true inherit meaning, purpose, or value. When humanity eventually has to deal with the fact that life is inherently meaningless, most would see this as a crisis. The appearance of this idea led to his famous work of “the death of God,” where the emergence of philosophical thought and science lead to a decline in Christianity and traditional religion.

Nietzsche was born on October 15 1844 in the town of Röcken, near Leipzig He was the son of Karl Ludwig and Franziska Nietzsche. Karl Nietzsche was a Lutheran Minister in a small Prussian town. When Nietzsche was around five years old his father died of a brain hemorrhage, followed shortly by the death of his brother leaving Friedrich the only male of his house hold with his mother, sister, grandmother, and aunt. Upon his father’s death, Friedrich’s family moved to Naumburg, Saxony, where Friedrich gained admittance to the prestigious prep school of Schulpforta. In 1964 Nietzsche entered the University of Bonn, where he started to focus on philology. After a mandatory serving in the Prussian military, Friedrich began contributing articles to a major philosophical journal that was edited by Nietzsche’s professor at Bonn, Friedrich Ritschl. Friedrich’s esteem and Ritschl’s recommendation led him to become a Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Basel in Switzerland in January of 1869 at the age of 24.

His teaching was postponed in 1870 when he joined the Prussian military, serving as a medical orderly at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Because of illness he returned to Basel and continued his teaching there. For around half a decade Friedrich was greatly influenced by the artist Richard Wagner, who many thought of as a type of father figure for Nietzsche. The two eventually had a falling out due to the dominance Wagner had on Nietzsche’s thoughts and publishing’s, which only helped Nietzsche to focus on his own philosophies. Around 1878, at the age of 34, after failing to reposition himself into the philosophy department, Nietzsche got to a point where both he and the University of Basel agreed that he should not continue teaching there anymore. Like the split with Wagner, leaving the University only further liberated him.

While studying in Leipzig the philosopher by the name of Arthur Schopenhauer caught Nietzsche’s attention. Nietzsche upheld the idea that the most important aspect of philosophy was the philosopher behind the work. Nietzsche would skip lectures to devote time to Schopenhauer’s philosophy, which was stricken with ethical pessimism. Ultimately Nietzsche broke away from Schopenhauer’s pessimism. Again, like leaving Wagner and Basel, the split only further liberated Nietzsche’s philosophical ideals.

By the end of the 1880’s Nietzsche’s health worsened. On January 3^rd 1889 after watching a horse get flogged by its owner outside of his apartment, Nietzsche had an apparent complete mental and physical breakdown. After time spent in psychiatric clinics he was released to the care of his mother, and later to his sister. During the early 1890’s Elisabeth (Friedrich’s sister) gained access of all of Friedrich’s literary remains, both published and unpublished. She began spreading the writings which ultimately lead Nietzsche’s work to reach the acclaim it did. However, Elisabeth was said to alter and edit the intent and meanings of his original works to make them more popular, and occasionally as a political motive. Friedrich received almost none of this fame. After never really recovering from his mental and physical breakdown, Friedrich spent his last years at Villa Silberblick and passed away on August 25, 1900. He was buried in Röcken, near Leipzig. Elisabeth continued to show influence over Nietzsche’s work and reputation until her death in 1935.

Nietzsche’s work was very existentialistic. His connection with nihilism (the idea that life is inherently meaningless) and his idea that “god is dead” tried to convey that our old ways of depending on religion were gone and that our civilization had to rely on new methods of the justification of life. Once a culture overcomes nihilism and finds meaning in life, they then have a new foundation on which to thrive. Friedrich wanted to enhance the individual and their role of existence.