View source for Biography:Friedrich Nietzsche

{{short description|German philosopher}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region = [[Philosophy:Western philosophy|Western philosophy]]
| era = [[Philosophy:19th-century philosophy|19th-century philosophy]]
| image = Nietzsche187a.jpg{{!}}border
| caption = Nietzsche in Basel, Switzerland, {{circa}} 1875
| birth_name = {{nowrap|Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche}}
| birth_place = Röcken, Saxony, [[History:Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1900|08|25|1844|10|15}}
| death_place = Weimar, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, [[Place:German Empire|German Empire]]
| alma_mater = {{Plainlist}}
* [[Organization:University of Bonn|University of Bonn]]
* [[Organization:Leipzig University|Leipzig University]]
| institutions = [[Organization:University of Basel|University of Basel]]
| school_tradition = {{Plainlist|
* [[Philosophy:Continental philosophy|Continental philosophy]]
* Nietzscheanism
| style = padding-bottom: 4px;
}}
{{Collapsible list|title={{nobold|''Other schools''}}
| [[Philosophy:Anti-foundationalism|Anti-foundationalism]]
| [[Philosophy:Atheism|Atheism]]
| [[Religion:Dionysus#Modern literature and philosophy|Dionysianism]]<ref>{{cite journal|last=Brennan|first=Katie|title=The Wisdom of Silenus: Suffering in The Birth of Tragedy|journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies|volume=49|number=2|year=2018|pages=174–193|doi=10.5325/jnietstud.49.2.0174|jstor=10.5325/jnietstud.49.2.0174|s2cid=171652169}}</ref>
| [[Philosophy:Pessimism#Friedrich Nietzsche|Dionysian pessimism]]<ref>{{cite journal|last=Dienstag|first=Joshua F.|title=Nietzsche's Dionysian Pessimism|journal=American Political Science Review|volume=95|issue=4|year=2001|pages=923–937|doi=|jstor=3117722}}</ref>
| [[Philosophy:Existentialism|Existentialism]]
| [[Philosophy:German Romanticism|German Romanticism]] {{small|(disputed)<ref name=Perez2015/>}}
| Immoralism<ref>Nietzsche self-describes his philosophy as immoralism, see also: {{cite journal|last=Laing|first=Bertram M.|year=1915|title=The Metaphysics of Nietzsche's Immoralism|journal=The Philosophical Review|volume=24|number=4|pages=386–418|doi=10.2307/2178746|jstor=2178746}}</ref>
| Metaphysical voluntarism
| [[Philosophy:Naturalism|Naturalism]]<ref>{{cite journal|last=Schacht|first=Richard|year=2012|title=Nietzsche's Naturalism|journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies|volume=43|number=2|pages=185–212|publisher=Penn State University Press|doi=10.5325/jnietstud.43.2.0185|s2cid=169130060}}</ref>
| [[Philosophy:Perspectivism|Perspectivism]]
| [[Philosophy:Philosophical realism|Philosophical realism]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Conway|first=Daniel|year=1999|chapter=Beyond Truth and Appearance: Nietzsche’s Emergent Realism|editor-last=Babich|editor-first=Babette E.|title=Nietzsche, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Science|series=Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science|volume=204|pages=109–122|publisher=Springer|location=Dordrecht|doi=10.1007/978-94-017-2428-9_9|isbn=978-90-481-5234-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Doyle|first=Tsarina|year=2005|chapter=Nietzsche's Emerging Internal Realism|title=Nietzsche on Epistemology and Metaphysics: The World in View|pages=81–103|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=9780748628070|doi=10.3366/edinburgh/9780748628070.003.0003}}</ref>
| Political realism<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kirkland|first=Paul E.|title=Nietzsche's Tragic Realism|journal=The Review of Politics|volume=72|number=1|year=2010|pages=55–78|doi=10.1017/S0034670509990969|jstor=25655890|s2cid=154098512}}</ref>
}}
| main_interests = {{cslist
| [[Social:Aesthetics|Aesthetics]]
| classical philology
| [[Philosophy:Ethics|ethics]]
| [[Philosophy:Metaphysics|metaphysics]]
| [[Philosophy:Ontology|ontology]]
| [[Philosophy:Philosophy of history|philosophy of history]]
| poetry
| [[Social:Psychology|psychology]]
| [[Social:Tragedy|tragedy]]
| truth theory
| [[Philosophy:Value theory|value theory]]
}}
| notable_ideas = {{collapsible list|title={{nothing}}
| {{lang|la|[[Philosophy:Amor fati|Amor fati]]}}
| [[Philosophy:Apollonian and Dionysian|Apollonian and Dionysian]]
| [[Philosophy:Eternal return|Eternal return]]
| [[Philosophy:Fact–value distinction|Fact–value distinction]]
| Genealogy
| [[Philosophy:God is dead|God is dead]]
| [[Biology:Herd behavior#Herd behavior in human societies|Herd instinct]]
| [[Philosophy:Last man|Last man]]
| [[Philosophy:Master–slave morality|Master–slave morality]]
| [[Philosophy:Nietzschean affirmation|Nietzschean affirmation]]
| [[Philosophy:Nihilism|Nihilism]]
| [[Philosophy:Perspectivism|Perspectivism]]
| ''[[Philosophy:Ressentiment|Ressentiment]]''
| [[Philosophy:Transvaluation of values|Transvaluation of values]]
| {{lang|de|[[Social:Tschandala|Tschandala]]}}
| {{lang|de|[[Übermensch]]}}
| [[Philosophy:Will to power|Will to power]]
}}
| influences = {{Flatlist}} <!-- Only add entries which are explained and cited in the body of the article (or cited here). Entries are sorted by birth year. -->
* [[Biography:Zoroaster|Zoroaster]]
* [[Biography:Homer|Homer]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Homer_and_Classical_Philology|title=Homer and Classical Philology}}</ref>
* [[Biography:Hesiod|Hesiod]]<ref>Nietzsche, "Die Florentinischer Tractat über Homer und Hesiod", in ''Rhetorica'' (Rheinisches museum für philologie) '''25''' (1870:528-40) and '''28''' (1873:211-49).</ref>
* Archilochus<ref>{{cite journal|author=Colony|first=Tracy|year=1999|title=Exquisite Stimulations: Will and Illusion in The Birth of Tragedy|journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies|issue=17|pages=50–61|jstor=20717704?seq=1}}</ref>
* Theognis of Megara<ref>Maudemarie Clark and Alan Swensen in their edition, ''On the Genealogy of Morality: a polemic'', Hackett Publishing Company (1998), note 13:13 page 133</ref>
* Milesian School<ref name="ReferenceA">Nietzsche, Friedrich, ''Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks'', Regnery Gateway, {{ISBN|0-89526-944-9}}.</ref>
* Pindar<ref>{{cite journal|author=Behler|first=Ernst|year=1995|title=Nietzsche's Study of Greek Rhetoric|journal=Research in Phenomenology|volume=25|pages=3–26|doi=10.1163/156916495X00022|jstor=24658661?seq=1}}</ref>
* [[Biography:Heraclitus|Heraclitus]]
* [[Biography:Parmenides|Parmenides]]<ref name="ReferenceA">Nietzsche, Friedrich, ''Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks'', Regnery Gateway, {{ISBN|0-89526-944-9}}.</ref>
* [[Biography:Aeschylus|Aeschylus]]
* Sophocles
* Euripides<ref>Hinden, Michael. 1981. "Nietzsche's Quarrel With Euripides" ''Criticism'' Vol. 23, No. 3 {{JSTOR|23104981}}.</ref>
* [[Biography:Socrates|Socrates]]
* [[Biography:Plato|Plato]]
* [[Biography:Xenophon|Xenophon]]
* [[Biography:Epicurus|Epicurus]]<ref>Milkowski, Marcin. "IDYLLIC HEROISM: NIETZSCHE'S VIEW OF EPICURUS.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies, no. 15, 1998, pp. 70–79. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20717687.</ref>
* [[Biography:Thucydides|Thucydides]]<ref>{{cite journal|author=Jenkins|first=Scott|year=2011|title=What Does Nietzsche Owe Thucydides?|journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies|volume=42|issue=Special Issue Nietzsche's Ancient|pages=32–50|doi=10.5325/jnietstud.42.1.0032|jstor=10.5325/jnietstud.42.1.0032?seq=1|s2cid=170830037}}</ref>
* [[Biography:Diogenes Laërtius|Diogenes Laërtius]]<ref name="Anthony K. Jensen 2014, p. 115">Anthony K. Jensen, Helmut Heit (eds.), ''Nietzsche as a Scholar of Antiquity'', A&C Black, 2014, p. 115.</ref>
* [[Biography:Niccolò Machiavelli|Machiavelli]]<ref>{{cite book|last=von Vacano|first=Diego|year=2007|title=The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche and the Making of Aesthetic Political Theory|location=Lanham, MD|publisher=Lexington}}</ref>
* [[Biography:Michel de Montaigne|Montaigne]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Miner|first=Robert|year=2017|title=Nietzsche and Montaigne|location=Cham|publisher=[[Company:Palgrave Macmillan|Palgrave Macmillan]]|isbn=9783319667447|oclc=994692085|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-66745-4_3}}</ref>
* Cervantes<ref name=Perez2015>{{cite journal|last=Perez|first=Rolando|year=2015|title=Nietzsche's Reading of Cervantes' "Cruel" Humor in Don Quijote|journal=EHumanista|volume=30|pages=168–175|url=https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume30/11%20ehum30.perez.pdf}} {{ISSN|1540-5877}}.</ref>
* Shakespeare<ref name="marg_Shak">{{Cite web
| title = Shakespeare Contra Nietzsche by Andrew Lanham
| author = 
| work = marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org
| date = 9 May 2016
| access-date = 4 January 2021
| url = https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/shakespeare-contra-nietzsche-andrew-lanham/
| quote = 
}}</ref>
* French Moralists
* [[Biography:Baruch Spinoza|Spinoza]]
* [[Biography:Immanuel Kant|Kant]]
* [[Biography:Johann Gottfried Herder|Herder]]<ref>Michael N. Forster. ''After Herder: Philosophy of Language in the German Tradition''. Oxford University Press. 2010. p. 9.</ref>
* [[Biography:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]
* Hölderlin
* [[Biography:Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|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>
* Stendhal
* [[Biography:Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]]
* Ortlepp
* [[Biography:Ralph Waldo Emerson|Emerson]]
* [[Biography:Ludwig Feuerbach|Feuerbach]]
* Sainte-Beuve<ref>Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve: Menschen des XVIII. Jahrhunderts. Übersetzt von Ida Overbeck, initiiert von Friedrich Nietzsche. Mit frisch entdeckten Aufzeichnungen von Ida Overbeck neu ediert von [[Biography:Andreas Urs Sommer|Andreas Urs Sommer]]. 423 pp. Berlin: Die Andere Bibliothek, 2014. {{ISBN|978-3-8477-0355-6}}</ref>
* [[Biography:John Stuart Mill|Mill]]
* Strauss
* [[Biography:Charles Darwin|Darwin]]
* [[Biography:Alexander Herzen|Herzen]]<ref>{{cite journal|last=Weidemaier|first=William Cannon|title=Herzen and Nietzsche: A Link in the Rise of Modern Pessimism|journal=The Russian Review|volume=36|number=4|year=1977|pages=477–488|doi=10.2307/128654|jstor=128654}}</ref>
* Wagner
* Burckhardt
* [[Biography:Herbert Spencer|Spencer]]<ref>{{cite journal|author=Moore|first=Gregory|year=2002|title=Nietzsche, Spencer, and the Ethics of Evolution|journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies|volume=23|issue=23|pages=1–20|doi=10.1353/nie.2002.0005|jstor=20717777?seq=1|s2cid=170947268}}</ref>
* Baudelaire
* Dostoyevsky
* Maupassant
* Renan
* [[Biography:Friedrich Albert Lange|Lange]]<ref name=Meyer2014/>
* [[Biography:Julius Bahnsen|Bahnsen]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brobjer |first1=Thomas |title=Nietzsche's Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2008 |pages=39, 48, 55, 140}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jensen |first1=Anthony |title=Julius Bahnsen's Influence on Nietzsche's Wills-Theory |journal=Journal of Nietzsche Studies |volume=47 |number=1 |date=Spring 2016 |pages=101–118|doi=10.5325/jnietstud.47.1.0101 |s2cid=170590787 }}</ref>
* Teichmüller<ref name=Meyer2014>{{cite book|last=Meyer|first=Matthew|date=2014|title=Reading Nietzsche through the Ancients: An Analysis of Becoming, Perspectivism, and the Principle of Non-Contradiction|publisher=De Gruyter|isbn=978-1-934078-41-9|location=Berlin|pages=1–33}}</ref>
* [[Biography:Afrikan Spir|Spir]]
* [[Biography:Philipp Mainländer|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|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>
* von Hellwald<ref>[https://philosophynow.org/issues/93/Nietzsches_Dance_With_Zarathustra Constantine Sandis, ''Nietzsche's Dance With Zarathustra''], 2012.</ref>
* [[Biography:Paul Rée|Rée]]
* Bourget<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>

{{Endflatlist}}
| influenced = {{Flatlist}} <!-- Only add entries which are explained and cited in the body of the article (or cited here). Entries are sorted alphabetically. -->
* Adler<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Project MUSE – Friedrich Nietzsche and Alfred Adler |journal=The Journal of Individual Psychology |volume=71 |issue=4 |pages=415–425 |doi=10.1353/jip.2015.0035 |date=2015 |last1=Stone|first1=Thomas|s2cid=146319735 }}</ref>
* Adorno
* Asad
* Auden
* [[Biography:Georges Bataille|Bataille]]
* [[Biography:Maurice Blanchot|Blanchot]]
* [[Philosophy:Georg Brandes|Brandes]]
* [[Biography:Martin Buber|Buber]]
* [[Biography:Joseph Campbell|Campbell]]
* [[Biography:Albert Camus|Camus]]
* [[Biography:Cornelius Castoriadis|Castoriadis]]
* [[Biography:Emil Cioran|Cioran]]
* [[Biography:Gilles Deleuze|Deleuze]]
* [[Biography:Jacques Derrida|Derrida]]
* [[Biography:Michel Foucault|Foucault]]
* Hamsun
* [[Biography:Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]]
* [[Biography:Hermann Hesse|Hesse]]
* [[Biography:Muhammad Iqbal|Iqbal]]
* [[Biography:Carl Jung|Jung]]
* [[Biography:Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Kaufmann]]
* Klossowski
* [[Biography:Sarah Kofman|Sarah Kofman]]
* [[Biography:Alasdair MacIntyre|MacIntyre]]
* Malaka
* [[Biography:Thomas Mann|Mann]]
* [[Biography:André Malraux|Malraux]]
* Mencken
* [[Biography:Alexander Nehamas|Nehamas]]
* [[Biography:Marcel Proust|Proust]]<ref>{{cite journal|author=Large|first=Duncan|year=1993|title=Proust on Nietzsche: The Question of Friendship|journal=The Modern Language Review|volume=88|issue=3|pages=612–624|doi=10.2307/3734929|jstor=3734929}}</ref>
* [[Biography:Ayn Rand|Rand]]
* [[Biography:Paul Ricœur|Ricœur]]
* Rogers
* [[Biography:Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre]]
* [[Biography:Lev Shestov|Shestov]]
* [[Biography:Oswald Spengler|Spengler]]
* [[Biography:Rudolf Steiner|Steiner]]
* Stevens
* [[Biography:Leo Strauss|Strauss]]
* [[Biography:August Strindberg|Strindberg]]
* [[Biography:Paul Tillich|Tillich]]
* [[Biography:Ferdinand Tönnies|Tönnies]]
* [[Biography:Miguel de Unamuno|Unamuno]]
* [[Biography:Roberto Mangabeira Unger|Unger]]
* [[Biography:Max Weber|Weber]]
* Weizmann
* [[Biography:Dallas Willard|Willard]]
* Yeats

{{Endflatlist}}
| signature = Friedrich Nietzsche Signature.svg
}}

'''Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|n|iː|tʃ|ə|,_|ˈ|n|iː|tʃ|i}};<ref>Wells, John C. 1990. "Nietzsche." ''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. Harlow, UK: Longman. {{ISBN|978-0-582-05383-0}}. p. 478.</ref> {{IPA-de|ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtʃə|lang|De-Friedrich Nietzsche.ogg}} <small>or</small> {{IPA-de|ˈniːtsʃə|}};<ref>''Duden – Das Aussprachewörterbuch'' 7. Berlin: Bibliographisches Institut. 2015. {{ISBN|978-3-411-04067-4}}. p.&nbsp;633.</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|url=https://archive.org/details/deutschesausspra00krec|url-access=limited|trans-title=German Pronunciation Dictionary |language=de |year=2009|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|location=Berlin|isbn=978-3-11-018202-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/deutschesausspra00krec/page/n531 520], 777}}</ref> 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German<!-- The question of whether to call Nietzsche "German" or not has been extensively debated over several years and the consensus is to call him German. Records of this are in the archived talk pages no. 10, 11, 12, 15. Please do not change this without gaining consensus on the talk page. --> philosopher, [[Philosophy:Cultural critic|cultural critic]], composer, poet, writer, and [[Philology|philologist]] whose work has exerted a profound influence on [[Philosophy:Contemporary philosophy|modern intellectual history]]. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to [[Philosophy:Philosophy|philosophy]]. He became the youngest person ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the [[Organization:University of Basel|University of Basel]] in 1869 at the age of 24. 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. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties. 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.

Nietzsche's writing spans [[Philosophy:Philosophy|philosophical]] polemics, poetry, [[Philosophy:Cultural critic|cultural critic]]ism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of [[Truth|truth]] in favor of [[Philosophy:Perspectivism|perspectivism]]; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and related theory of [[Philosophy:Master–slave morality|master–slave morality]]; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "[[Philosophy:God is dead|death of God]]" and the profound crisis of [[Philosophy:Nihilism|nihilism]]; the notion of [[Philosophy:Apollonian and Dionysian|Apollonian and Dionysian]] forces; and a characterization of the human [[Philosophy:Subject|subject]] as the expression of competing [[Philosophy:Will|wills]], collectively understood as the [[Philosophy:Will to power|will to power]]. He also developed influential concepts such as the ''{{lang|de|[[Übermensch]]}}'' and the doctrine of [[Philosophy:Eternal return|eternal return]]. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of [[Philosophy:Transvaluation of values|new values]] and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, [[Philosophy:Philosophy of history|history]], music, [[Religion:Philosophy of religion|religion]], [[Social:Tragedy|tragedy]], [[Philosophy:Philosophy of culture|culture]], and [[Philosophy:Philosophy of science|science]], and drew inspiration from figures such as [[Biography:Socrates|Socrates]], [[Biography:Zoroaster|Zoroaster]], [[Biography:Arthur Schopenhauer|Arthur Schopenhauer]], [[Biography:Ralph Waldo Emerson|Ralph Waldo Emerson]], Richard Wagner and [[Biography:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]].

After his death, his sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with [[Social:Fascism|fascism]] and [[Social:Nazism|Nazism]]; 20th-century scholars contested this interpretation, 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 [[Philosophy:Continental philosophy|continental philosophy]] such as [[Philosophy:Existentialism|existentialism]], [[Philosophy:Postmodernism|postmodernism]] and [[Philosophy:Post-structuralism|post-structuralism]]—as well as art, literature, [[Social:Psychology|psychology]], politics, and popular culture.

== Life ==

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

Born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the town of Röcken (now part of Lützen), near Leipzig, in the [[History:Kingdom of Prussia|Prussian]] Province of Saxony. He was named after King 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 [[Religion:Lutheranism|Lutheran]] [[Religion:Pastor|pastor]] and former teacher; and Franziska Nietzsche (''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, a museum and Nietzsche study center.
[[File:Nietzsche1861.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Young Nietzsche, 1861]]

Nietzsche attended a boys' school and then a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug 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 [[Religion:Christian theology|Christian theology]].<ref name="Human, All Too Human, BBC Documentary, 1999">{{cite web|title=Friedrich Nietzsche|url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/human-all-too-human-bbc-documentary-1999|date=1999|website=Human, All Too Human|publisher=BBC Documentary|via=Columbia College|access-date=16 October 2019}}</ref>{{better source needed|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 [[Social:Scholarship|scholarship]] to study at the internationally recognized Schulpforta (the claim that Nietzsche was admitted on the strength of his academic competence has been debunked: his grades were not 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|year=2008|pages=322–27}}</ref> He 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—[[Social:Greek language|Greek]], [[Social:Latin|Latin]], [[Social:Hebrew language|Hebrew]], and [[Social:French language|French]]—so as to be able to read important [[Primary source|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 Schulpforta, Nietzsche pursued 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 writing an [[Social:Essay|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 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'', Bloomsbury Academic, 2014, p. 4.</ref> Nietzsche began studying theology and classical philology at the [[Organization:University of Bonn|University of Bonn]] in the hope of becoming a [[Religion:Minister (Christianity)|minister]]. For a short time, he and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft ''Frankonia''. After one semester (and to the anger of his mother), he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith.<ref name=Schaberg>{{cite book |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>{{cite book |first=Jörg |last=Salaquarda |chapter=Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian tradition |title=The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche |publisher={{wipe|Cambridge University Press}} |year=1996 |page=99}}</ref> but David Strauss's ''Life of Jesus'' also seems to have had a profound effect on the young man.<ref name=Schaberg /> In addition, [[Biography:Ludwig Feuerbach|Ludwig Feuerbach]]'s ''[[Philosophy:The Essence of Christianity|The Essence of Christianity]]'' influenced young Nietzsche with its argument that people created God, and not the other way around.<ref name=Higgins>{{cite book |last=Higgins |first=Kathleen |title=What Nietzsche Really Said|publisher=Random House |location=New York |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....<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://babbledom.com/2011/02/17/intermission/ |title=Nietzsche, Letter to His Sister (1865) |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121124011911/http://babbledom.com/2011/02/17/intermission/ |archive-date=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 [[Biography:Arthur Schopenhauer|Arthur Schopenhauer]]. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Schopenhauer's ''[[Philosophy:The World as Will and Representation|The World as Will and Representation]]'' and later admitted that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers whom he respected, dedicating the essay "Schopenhauer as Educator" in the ''Untimely Meditations'' to him.

In 1866, he read [[Biography:Friedrich Albert Lange|Friedrich Albert Lange]]'s ''History of Materialism''. Lange's descriptions of Kant's anti-materialistic philosophy, the rise of European [[Philosophy:Materialism|Materialism]], Europe's increased concern with science, [[Biography:Charles Darwin|Charles Darwin]]'s theory of [[Biology:Evolution|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 pommel and tore two muscles in his left side, leaving him exhausted and unable to walk for months.<ref>Hayman, Ronald. 1980. ''Nietzsche: A Critical Life''. New York: [[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]]. p. 93.</ref><ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. [June 1868] 1921. "Letter to Karl Von Gersdorff." ''Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche'', translated by [[Biography:Anthony Ludovici|A. M. Ludovici]].</ref> Consequently, he turned his attention to his studies again, completing them in 1868. Nietzsche also met Richard Wagner for the first time later that year.<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. [November 1868] 1921. "[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_Letters_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche#To_Rohde_-_October.2C_1868 Letter to Rohde]." ''Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche'', translated by [[Biography:Anthony Ludovici|A. M. Ludovici]].</ref>

=== Professor at Basel (1869–1878) ===
{{anchor|Professor at Basel|Basel}}
[[File:11-11-24-basel-by-ralfr-035.jpg|thumb|left|upright|The University of Basel, where Friedrich Nietzsche became a professor in 1869]]
[[File:Rohde Gersdorff Nietzsche.JPG|thumb|upright|Left to right: Erwin Rohde, Karl von Gersdorff and Nietzsche, October 1871]]

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

Despite his offer coming 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>{{cite book |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 [[Biography:Diogenes Laërtius|Diogenes Laërtius]].<ref name="Anthony K. Jensen 2014, p. 115">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 {{Lang-de|text=gratulationsschrift|label=none}} ('congratulatory publication') in [[Place:Basel|Basel]].<ref>George E. McCarthy, [http://personal.kenyon.edu/mccarthy/Book1.htm ''Dialectics and Decadence'']</ref><ref group="lower-roman">Between 1868 and 1870, he published two other studies on Diogenes Laertius: ''On the Sources of Diogenes Laertius'' (''De Fontibus Diogenis Laertii'') Part I (1868) & Part II (1869); and ''Analecta Laertiana'' (1870). See Jensen and Heit (2014), p. 115.</ref>

Before moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship: for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.<ref>Hecker, Hellmuth. 1987. "Nietzsches Staatsangehörigkeit als Rechtsfrage." ''Neue Juristische Wochenschrift'' 40(23):1388–91.</ref><ref>His, Eduard. 1941. "Friedrich Nietzsches Heimatlosigkeit." ''Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde'' 40:159–86.

Note that some authors (incl. Deussen and Montinari) mistakenly claim that Nietzsche became a Swiss citizen to become a university professor.</ref>

Nevertheless, Nietzsche served in the Prussian forces during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) as a medical [[Medicine:Orderly|orderly]]. In his short time in the military, he experienced much and witnessed the traumatic effects of battle. He also contracted [[Medicine:Diphtheria|diphtheria]] and [[Medicine:Dysentery|dysentery]].<ref name=":2">Deussen, Paul. 1901. ''Erinnerungen a Friedrich Nietzsche''. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus.</ref> [[Biography:Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Walter Kaufmann]] speculates that he might also have contracted [[Medicine:Syphilis|syphilis]] at a brothel along with his other infections at this time.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Sax|first1=Leonard|year=2003|title=What was the cause of Nietzsche's dementia?|journal=Journal of Medical Biography|volume=11|issue=1|pages=47–54|doi=10.1177/096777200301100113|pmid=12522502|s2cid=6929185}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |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 [[Place:German Empire|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 "Homer and Classical Philology". Nietzsche also met Franz Overbeck, a professor of theology who remained his friend throughout his life. [[Biography:Afrikan Spir|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.<ref>Green, M. S. 2002. ''Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition''. University of Illinois Press.{{full citation needed|date=November 2012}}</ref>

Nietzsche had already met Richard Wagner in Leipzig in 1868 and later Wagner's wife, Cosima. Nietzsche admired both greatly and during his time at Basel frequently visited Wagner's house in Tribschen in 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>Hughes, Rupert. [1903] 2004. "[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11419/11419-h/11419-h.htm#img2 Franz Liszt]." Ch. 1 in [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11419/11419-h/11419-h.htm#img2 ''The Love Affairs of Great Musicians'' 2]. [[Project Gutenberg]]. Also available via [http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/11419/1.html#gsc.tab=0 Book Rags].</ref> Nietzsche enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of the 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 [[Place:Kiel|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.
[[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 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 [[Biography:Paul Rée|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 ''[[Philosophy:Human, All Too Human|Human, All Too Human]]'' (a book of aphorisms ranging from metaphysics to morality to religion), a new style of Nietzsche's work became clear, highly influenced by [[Biography:Afrikan Spir|Afrikan Spir]]'s ''Thought and Reality''<ref>Safranski, Rüdiger. 2003. ''Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography'', trans. S. Frisch. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 161.

"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 §&nbsp;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 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 Lou Andreas-Salomé.]]

Living off his pension from Basel and aid from friends, Nietzsche traveled 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 Maria near St. Moritz in Switzerland. He spent his winters in the Italian cities of Genoa, Rapallo, and [[Place:Turin|Turin]] and the French city of Nice. In 1881, when France occupied Tunisia, he planned to travel to [[Place:Tunis|Tunis]] to view Europe from the outside but later abandoned that idea, probably for health reasons.<ref>Güntzel, Stephan. 2003. "[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/45353/pdf Nietzsche's Geophilosophy] (PDF)" (in English and German). ''Journal of Nietzsche Studies'' 25:78–91. {{Doi|10.1353/nie.2003.0010}}. p. 85. – via [[Project MUSE]].</ref> Nietzsche occasionally returned to Naumburg to visit his family, and, especially during this time, he and his sister had repeated periods of conflict and reconciliation.

While in Genoa, Nietzsche's failing eyesight prompted him to explore the use of typewriters as a means of continuing to write. He is known to have tried using the Hansen Writing Ball, a contemporary typewriter device. In the end, a past student of his, Heinrich Köselitz or Peter Gast, became a private secretary to Nietzsche. In 1876, Gast transcribed the crabbed, nearly illegible handwriting of Nietzsche's 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. 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 ''Also Sprach Zarathustra'' ('''Thus Spoke Zarathustra''<nowiki/>'), 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 [[Biography:Epicurus|Epicurus]], for example, had to rely on 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 ''[[Philosophy:Human, All Too Human|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 ''[[Philosophy:The Gay Science|The Gay Science]]''. That year he also met Lou Andreas-Salomé,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.f-nietzsche.de/lou_e.htm |title=Lou von Salomé |website=f-nietzsche.de}}</ref> through Malwida von Meysenbug and [[Biography:Paul Rée|Paul Rée]].

Salomé's mother took her to Rome when Salomé was 21. At a literary salon in the city, Salomé became acquainted with [[Biography:Paul Rée|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 Salomé, as Rée had done. Nietzsche asked Rée to propose marriage to Salomé, 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 Salomé 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. They intended to set up their commune in an abandoned monastery, but no suitable location was found. On 13 May, in Lucerne, when Nietzsche was alone with Salomé, 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 is questionable.{{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 Salomé ditched Nietzsche, leaving for Stibbe (today Zdbowo in Poland)<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Killy|first1=Walther|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JkoK_108xJkC&q=Stibbe+Zdbowo+Nietzsche&pg=PT223|title=Plett – Schmidseder|last2=Vierhaus|first2=Rudolf|date=30 November 2011|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-096630-5|language=en}}</ref> 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 Salomé on Salomé, Rée, and on the intrigues of his sister (who had written letters to the families of Salomé 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 [[Biology:Opium|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 [[Chemistry:Chloral hydrate|chloral hydrate]], signing them "Dr. Nietzsche".{{Sfn |Cate |2005 |p=453}}

He turned away from the influence of Schopenhauer, and after he severed 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. His books remained largely unsold. In 1885, he printed only 40 copies of the fourth part of ''Zarathustra'' and distributed a fraction of them among close friends, including [[Biography:Helene von Druskowitz|Helene von Druskowitz]].

In 1883, he tried and failed to obtain a lecturing post at the University of Leipzig. According to a letter he wrote to Peter Gast, this was due to his "attitude towards Christianity and the concept of God".<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich. [26 August 1883] 1921. "Letter to Peter Gast." ''Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche'', translated by [[Biography:Anthony Ludovici|A. M. Ludovici]].</ref>

In 1886, Nietzsche broke with his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner, disgusted by his antisemitic opinions. Nietzsche saw his own writings as "completely buried and 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|title=Ernst Schmeitzner (1851–1895). 115 letters 1874–1886 {{!}} Correspondences|url=http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/correspondence/corresp.htm#schmei|date=1 February 2000|website=The Nietzsche Channel|access-date=27 November 2013}}</ref> He then printed ''[[Philosophy:Beyond Good and Evil|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'', ''[[Philosophy:Human, All Too Human|Human, All Too Human]]'', ''Daybreak'', and of ''[[Philosophy:The Gay Science|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 antisemite Bernhard Förster and travelled to Paraguay to found Nueva Germania, a "Germanic" colony.<ref>"[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elisabeth-Forster-Nietzsche Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche]." ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''. [1998] 2019. Retrieved 25 May 2020.</ref><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|location=Costa Rica|access-date=29 September 2019}}</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 ''[[Philosophy:On the Genealogy of Morality|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. [March 1887] 1921. "Letter to Peter Gast." ''Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche'', translated by [[Biography:Anthony Ludovici|A. M. Ludovici]].</ref> He also exchanged letters with Hippolyte Taine and [[Philosophy:Georg Brandes|Georg Brandes]]. Brandes, who had started to teach the philosophy of [[Biography:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]] in the 1870s, wrote to Nietzsche asking him to read Kierkegaard, to which Nietzsche replied that he would come to [[Place:Copenhagen|Copenhagen]] and read Kierkegaard with him. However, before fulfilling this promise, Nietzsche slipped too far into illness. At 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 ''[[Philosophy:On the Genealogy of Morality|On the Genealogy of Morality]]'' a new work with the title ''The Will to Power: Attempt at a [[Philosophy:Transvaluation of values|Revaluation of All Values]]'', he seems to have abandoned this idea and, instead, used some of the draft passages to compose ''Twilight of the Idols'' and ''The Antichrist'' in 1888.<ref>{{cite book |last=Montinari |first=Mazzino |year=1974 |title=Friedrich Nietzsche. Eine Einführung |language=de |publisher=De Gruyter}} translated as {{cite book |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |language=fr |year=1991 |location=Paris |publisher=PUF}}</ref>

His health improved and he spent the summer in high spirits. In the autumn 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'', he decided to write the autobiography ''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 [[Biography:August Strindberg|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''.

=== Insanity and death (1889–1900) ===
{{anchor|mental breakdown and death|breakdown|death}}
[[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)|268x268px]]

On 3 January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a [[Medicine:Mental breakdown|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/books?id=Xeb80itrlRIC|language=en}}</ref> Two policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the streets of [[Place:Turin|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>Verrecchia, Anacleto. 1988. "Nietzsche's Breakdown in Turin." Pp. 105–12 in ''Nietzsche in Italy'', edited by T. Harrison. Stanford: ANMA Libri, [[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford University]].</ref>

In the following few days, Nietzsche sent short writings—known as the ''Wahnzettel'' (literally "Delusion notes")—to a number of friends including Cosima Wagner and Jacob Burckhardt. Most of them were signed "[[Religion:Dionysus|Dionysus]]", though some were also signed "der Gekreuzigte" meaning "the crucified one". To his former colleague Burckhardt, Nietzsche wrote:<ref>{{cite web|title=Nietzsches Briefe. Ausgewählte Korrespondenz. Wahnbriefe.|url=http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/correspondence/ger/nilettersg.htm|last=Simon|first=Gerald|date=January 1889|publisher=The Nietzsche Channel|access-date=24 August 2013|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>[[File:Friedrich Nietzsche drawn by Hans Olde.jpg|thumb|Drawing by Hans Olde from the photographic series, ''The Ill Nietzsche'', late 1899|232x232px]]<blockquote>I have had [[Religion:Caiaphas|Caiaphas]] put in fetters. Also, last year I was crucified by the German doctors in a very drawn-out manner. Wilhelm, Bismarck, and all anti-Semites abolished.</blockquote>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>Zweig, Stefan. 1939. ''The Struggle with the Daimon: Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche'', (''Master Builders of the Spirit'' 2). Viking Press. p. 524.</ref> writing also 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|title=1889|url=https://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/1889.html|last=Brown|first=Malcolm|date=2011|website=Nietzsche Chronicle|publisher=Dartmouth College|access-date=28 September 2019}}</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 |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 |title=Langbehn, Julius |url=http://arthistorians.info/langbehnj |editor-last=Sorensen |editor-first=Lee |website=Dictionary of Art Historians |access-date=29 September 2019}}</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'' 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|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 studied Nietzsche's works and, piece by piece, took control of their publication. Overbeck was dismissed 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 [[Biography:Rudolf Steiner|Rudolf Steiner]] (who in 1895 had written ''Friedrich Nietzsche: a Fighter Against His Time,'' one of the first books praising Nietzsche),<ref>{{cite book |first=Rudolf |last=Steiner |title=Friedrich Nietzsche, in Kämpfer seine Zeit |place=Weimar |year=1895}}</ref> to meet her uncommunicative brother. Elisabeth employed 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>{{cite book |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|After the breakdown, Peter Gast "corrected" Nietzsche's writings without his approval.|alt=|left]]

Nietzsche's insanity was originally diagnosed as tertiary syphilis, in accordance with a prevailing medical paradigm of the time. Although most commentators{{who|date=May 2021}} regard his breakdown as unrelated to his philosophy, [[Biography:Georges Bataille|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 |volume = 36|date =Spring 1986|pages = 42–45|jstor=778548|doi= 10.2307/778548 }}</ref> and [[Biography:René Girard|René Girard]]'s postmortem psychoanalysis posits a worshipful rivalry with Richard Wagner.<ref>[[Biography:René Girard|Girard, René]]. 1976. "Superman in the Underground: Strategies of Madness—Nietzsche, Wagner, and Dostoevsky." ''[[Philosophy:Modern Language Notes|Modern Language Notes]]'' 91(6):1161–85. {{Doi|10.2307/2907130}}. {{JSTOR|2907130}}. {{S2CID|163754306}}.</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 "[[Medicine:Bipolar disorder|manic-depressive illness]] with periodic [[Medicine:Psychosis|psychosis]] followed by [[Medicine:Vascular dementia|vascular dementia]]" was put forward by Cybulska prior to Schain's study.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cybulska|first=E. M.|date=2000|title=The madness of Nietzsche: a misdiagnosis of the millennium?|journal=Hospital Medicine|volume=61|issue=8|pages=571–75|doi=10.12968/hosp.2000.61.8.1403|pmid=11045229}}</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 [[Medicine:Meningioma|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 [[Medicine:Frontotemporal dementia|frontotemporal dementia]]<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Orth|first1=M.|last2=Trimble|first2=M. R.|date=2006|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|doi=10.1111/j.1600-0447.2006.00827.x|pmid=17087793|s2cid=25453044}}</ref> while other researchers have proposed a hereditary stroke disorder called [[Medicine:CADASIL|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 [[Chemistry:Mercury (element)|mercury]], a treatment for syphilis at the time of Nietzsche's death,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dayan |first1=L |last2=Ooi |first2=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|s2cid=6868863 }}</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. They 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 [[Medicine:Pneumonia|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 Lützen. His friend and secretary Gast gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: "Holy be your name to all future generations!"<ref>{{cite web |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 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060513011228/http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_31.html |archive-date=13 May 2006 }}</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'' 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 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 ''[[Social:Nachlass|Nachlass]]'', called it a forgery.<ref>Montinari, Mazzino. ''The 'Will to Power' Does Not Exist''.</ref> Yet, the endeavour to rescue Nietzsche's reputation by discrediting ''The Will to Power'' often leads to a scepticism about the value of his late notes, even of the whole ''Nachlass''. People often forget the simple fact that the ''Nachlass'' and ''The Will to Power'' are two diﬀerent things.<ref name=":3" />

=== 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 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><ref>Tanner, Michael. 2000. ''Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction''. {{ISBN|978-0-19-285414-8}}.</ref>{{sfn|Magnus|1999}}<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xeb80itrlRIC&q=%22German+philosopher%22+Nietzsche&pg=PA1 |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>Craid, Edward, ed. 2005. ''[[Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy|The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''. Abingdon: [[Company:Routledge|Routledge]]. pp. 726–41.</ref><ref>Blackburn, Simon. 2005. ''The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy''. Oxford: [[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]]. pp. 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 |url=https://archive.org/details/conciseencyclope00rejo_674 |url-access=limited |orig-year=1960 |edition= 3rd |year=2005 |publisher=Routledge |location=London|isbn=978-0-415-32924-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/conciseencyclope00rejo_674/page/n275 267]–70}}</ref> Germany had not yet been unified into a nation-state, but Nietzsche was born a citizen of [[Place:Prussia|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/books?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 annulment of his Prussian citizenship.<ref>Janz, Curt Paul. 1978. ''Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie'' 1. Munich: Carl Hanser. p. 263.

"{{Lang-de|text=Er beantragte also bei der preussischen Behörde seine Expatriierung|label=none}}." ('He accordingly applied to the Prussian authorities for expatrification.')</ref> The official revocation of his citizenship came in a document dated 17 April 1869,<ref>Colli, Giorgio, and Mazzino Montinari. 1993. "Entlassungsurkunde für den Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche aus Naumburg." In ''Nietzsche Briefwechsel'': ''Kritische Gesamtausgabe'' I.4. (in German) Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. {{ISBN|978-3-11-012277-0}}. p. 566.</ref> and for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.

At least toward the end of his life, Nietzsche believed his ancestors were Polish.<ref name="Mencken1913">{{Cite book |first=Henry Louis |last=Mencken |title=Friedrich Nietzsche |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_r71AzHvf64C&q=poland+polish&pg=PA6 |year=1913 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=978-1-56000-649-7 |page=6}}</ref> He wore a signet ring bearing the Radwan coat of arms, traceable back to 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| access-date = 16 August 2018| archive-url = https://archive.today/20170624204834/http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/| archive-date = 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| last1 = Niesiecki| first1 = Kasper|  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 = Noble/szlachta genealogical and heraldic reference| volume = VIII| page = 28| quote = Herbowni ... Nicki, ... (Heraldic Family ... Nicki, ...)}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1= Niesiecki|first1= 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, {{wipe|Poland}}, EU|publisher= Dr Minakowski Publikacje Elektroniczne|format= website|url= http://wielcy.pl/niesiecki/herb/radwan/5066.php|language= pl|type= Noble/szlachta genealogical and heraldic reference|access-date= 17 August 2018|archive-url= https://archive.today/20180817062826/http://wielcy.pl/niesiecki/herb/radwan/5066.php|archive-date = 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 [[Place:Prussia|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| access-date = 16 August 2018| archive-url = https://archive.today/20170624204834/http://auktionsverket.com/news/nietzsches-ring/| archive-date = 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.... I am proud of my Polish descent."<ref>{{cite book |first=Henry Louis |last=Mencken |title=The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche |orig-year=1908 |publisher=University of Michigan |year=2006 |page=6 |isbn=9780722220511 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nnEOAAAAIAAJ&q=Nietzsche+Polish&pg=PA6}}</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 Polish noble heritage.<ref>von Müller, Hans. 2002. "Nietzsche's Vorfahren" (reprint). ''Nietzsche-Studien'' 31:253–75. {{Doi|10.1515/9783110170740.253}}</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 [[Religion:Lutheranism|Lutheran]] clergymen on both sides of his family, and modern scholars regard the claim of Nietzsche's Polish ancestry as "pure invention".<ref name=mencken>{{cite book |first=Henry Louis |last=Mencken |title=The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche |others=introd. & comm. Charles Q. Bufe |publisher=See Sharp Press |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}} Nicholas D. More claims Nietzsche's claims of having an illustrious lineage were a parody on autobiographical conventions, and suspects ''Ecce Homo'', with its self-laudatory titles, such as "Why I Am So Wise", as being a work of satire.<ref>{{cite book |last1=More |first1=Nicholas D. |title=Nietzsche's Last Laugh: Ecce Homo as Satire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JVAHAwAAQBAJ&q=nietzsche+polish+aristocracy+satire&pg=PA69 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |access-date=31 August 2021 |language=en |date=27 March 2014|isbn=9781107050815 }}</ref>

=== Relationships and sexuality ===
Nietzsche never married. He proposed to 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 her 1898 novella ''Fenitschka,'' Salomé viewed the idea of sexual intercourse as prohibitive and marriage as a violation, with some suggesting that they indicated [[Social:Sexual repression|sexual repression]] and [[Medicine:Neurosis|neurosis]]<!-- "while others suggesting her homosexuality" – page number required -->.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Nietzsche's Women: Beyond the Whip|last=Diethe|first=Carol|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2RAhAAAAQBAJ|year=1996|isbn=978-3-11-014819-0|location=Berlin|page=56}}</ref> Reflecting on [[Physics:Unrequited love|unrequited love]], Nietzsche considered that "indispensable ... to the lover is his unrequited love, which he would at no price relinquish for a state of indifference".<ref group="lower-roman">This is how R. B. Pippin describes Nietzsche's views in ''The Persistence of Subjectivity'' (2005), p. 326.</ref>

Deussen cited the episode of Cologne's brothel in February 1865 as instrumental to understanding 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 in 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 name=":2" /> 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, Conn. |isbn=978-0-300-09278-3 |page=xv}}</ref> The acquisition of the infection from a homosexual brothel was confirmed by [[Biography:Sigmund Freud|Sigmund Freud]], who cited Otto Binswanger as his source.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Nietzsche and Jewish Culture|url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschejewishc00golo_034|url-access=limited|last=Golomb|first=Jacob|publisher=Routledge|year=2001|isbn=978-0-415-09512-9|location=London|page=[https://archive.org/details/nietzschejewishc00golo_034/page/n214 202]}}</ref> Köhler also suggests Nietzsche may have had a romantic relationship, as well as a friendship, with [[Biography:Paul Rée|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|url=https://archive.org/details/youngnietzschebe00plet|url-access=limited|last=Pletsch|first=Carl|publisher=The Free Press|year=1992|isbn=978-0-02-925042-6|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/youngnietzschebe00plet/page/n74 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 |last1=Megill |first1=Allan |title=Historicizing Nietzsche? Paradoxes and Lessons of a Hard Case |journal=The Journal of Modern History |date=1 March 1996 |volume=68 |issue=1 |pages=114–152 |doi=10.1086/245288 |s2cid=147507428 |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/245288 |issn=0022-2801}}</ref> It is also known that Nietzsche frequented [[Social:Heterosexuality|heterosexual]] brothels.<ref name=":0" /> [[Biography:Nigel Rodgers|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., and M. Thompson. 2004. ''[[Philosophy:Philosophers Behaving Badly|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=Grenke|first=Michael W.|year=2003|title=How Boring...|journal=The Review of Politics|volume=65|issue=1|pages=152–54|doi=10.1017/s0034670500036640|jstor=1408799|s2cid=145631903}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|author=Risse|first=Mathias|date=13 January 2003|title=Zarathustra's Secret. The Interior Life of Friedrich Nietzsche|url=http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23249-zarathustra-s-secret-the-interior-life-of-friedrich-nietzsche/|journal=Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews}}</ref> However, there are also those who stress that, if Nietzsche preferred men—with this preference constituting his 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. 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 |date=17 March 2015 |website=Open Culture}}</ref>

== Philosophy ==
[[File:Nietzsche187c.jpg|thumb|upright|Nietzsche, 1869]]

Because of Nietzsche's evocative style and provocative ideas, his philosophy generates passionate reactions. His works remain controversial, due to varying interpretations and misinterpretations. In Western philosophy, Nietzsche's writings have been described as a 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/books?id=AVYbszVKUO4C&pg=PA184 |access-date=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}}</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}}</ref>

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

The ''Apollonian and Dionysian'' is a two-fold philosophical concept, based on features of ancient Greek mythology: [[Unsolved:Apollo|Apollo]] and [[Religion:Dionysus|Dionysus]]. This relationship takes the form of a [[Philosophy:Dialectic|dialectic]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schrift|first=Alan D.|date=2006|title=Deleuze Becoming Nietzsche Becoming Spinoza Becoming Deleuze|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/philtoday200650supplement23|journal=Philosophy Today|volume=50|issue=9999|pages=187–194|doi=10.5840/philtoday200650supplement23|issn=0031-8256}}</ref> Even though the concept is famously related to ''The Birth of Tragedy,'' the poet Hölderlin had already spoken of it, and [[Biography:Johann Joachim Winckelmann|Winckelmann]] had talked of [[Religion:Dionysus|Bacchus]].

Nietzsche found in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that [[Philosophy:Transcendence|transcended]] the pessimism found in the so-called [[Unsolved: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. The main theme in ''The Birth of Tragedy'' is that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian ''Kunsttriebe'' ("artistic impulses") forms dramatic arts or tragedies. He argued that this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians. Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the [[Philosophy:Principle of individuation|principle of individuation]], whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity (hence the omission of the principle of individuation). 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 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/books?id=iP4sA3kwcFsC&q=Jim+Morrison+Apollonian+and+Dionysian&pg=PA69 |title=Ideas About Art|isbn=978-1-4443-9600-3|last1=Desmond|first1=Kathleen K|year= 2011}}</ref> the Apollonian a dreaming state, full of illusions; and Dionysian a state of intoxication, representing the liberations of instinct and dissolution of boundaries. In this mold, a man appears as the [[Unsolved:Satyr|satyr]]. He is the horror of the annihilation of the principle of [[Philosophy: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 is a living antithesis to the man of action, Nietzsche argues that a Dionysian figure possesses the knowledge that his actions cannot change the eternal balance of things, and it disgusts him enough not to act at all. Hamlet falls under this category—he 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, the experience of fullness and plenitude bestowed by frenzy. Frenzy acts as intoxication and is crucial for the [[Biology: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 [[Biography:Aeschylus|Aeschylus]] and Sophocles represent the apex of artistic creation, the true realization of tragedy; it is with Euripides, that tragedy begins its ''Untergang'' (literally 'going under' or 'downward-way;' meaning decline, deterioration, downfall, death, etc.). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' use of [[Philosophy:Socratic method|Socratic rationalism]] and [[Philosophy:Morality|morality]] in his tragedies, claiming that the infusion of ethics and [[Philosophy:Reason|reason]] robs tragedy of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the Dionysian and Apollonian. [[Biography:Socrates|Socrates]] emphasized reason to such a degree that he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human knowledge. [[Biography:Plato|Plato]] continued along this path in his dialogues, and the modern world eventually inherited reason at the expense of artistic impulses found in the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy. He notes that without the Apollonian, the Dionysian lacks the form and structure to make a coherent piece of art, and without the Dionysian, the Apollonian lacks the necessary vitality and 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 cultures.<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> [[Biography:Carl Jung|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> [[Biography:Michel Foucault|Michel Foucault]] commented that his own book ''Madness and Civilization'' should be read "under the sun of the great Nietzschean inquiry". Here Foucault referenced 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/books?id=4aNoFpNfYeMC&q=foucault+genealogy&pg=PA1 |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 presented in ''The Birth of Tragedy.''

=== Perspectivism ===
{{Main|Philosophy:Perspectivism}}

Nietzsche claimed the death of God would eventually lead to the loss of any universal perspective on things and 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) |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-9561835-7-6}}</ref>{{Sfn |Lampert |1986 |pp=17–18}}{{Sfn |Heidegger}} Nietzsche rejected the idea of objective reality, arguing that knowledge is [[Philosophy:Contingency|contingent]] and conditional, relative to various fluid perspectives or interests.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?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 |title=Nietzsche |date=1983 |page=61}}</ref> This view has acquired the name ''[[Philosophy:Perspectivism|perspectivism]].''

In ''Also Sprach Zarathustra,'' Nietzsche proclaimed that a table of values hangs above every great person. He pointed out that what is common among different peoples is the act of esteeming, of creating values, even if the values are different from one person to the next. Nietzsche asserted 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 willingness 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 Goal". 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. [[Biography:Max Weber|Max Weber]] and [[Biography:Martin Heidegger|Martin Heidegger]] absorbed it and made it their own. It shaped their philosophical and cultural endeavors, as well as their political understanding. Weber, for example, relied 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 |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|doi=10.1590/S1518-44712006000200006|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Among his critique of traditional philosophy of [[Biography:Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[Biography:René Descartes|Descartes]], and [[Biography:Plato|Plato]] in ''[[Philosophy:Beyond Good and Evil|Beyond Good and Evil]],'' Nietzsche attacked the ''thing in itself'' and ''cogito ergo sum'' ("I think, therefore I am") as [[Philosophy: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 [[Biography:Alasdair MacIntyre|Alasdair MacIntyre]] put 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/books?id=3JA3vyj4slsC&q=Alasdair+MacIntyre+Nietzsche+Kant&pg=PA108 |title=From Hegel to Existentialism|isbn=978-0-19-506182-6|last1=Solomon|first1=Robert C|year=1989}}</ref> he still commended him for recognizing psychological motives behind Kant and [[Biography:David Hume|Hume]]'s moral philosophy:<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TN7sop-yILMC&q=Alasdair+MacIntyre+Nietzsche+Kant&pg=PA136 |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 ... not only that what purported to be appeals of [[Philosophy:Objectivity|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/books?id=Z9RaG9ccs44C&q=Alasdair+MacIntyre+Nietzsche+Kant&pg=PA37 |title=Tradition in the ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre|isbn=978-0-7391-4148-9|last1=Lutz|first1=Christopher Stephen|year=2009}}</ref></blockquote>

=== Slave revolt in morals ===
{{Main|Philosophy:Master–slave morality}}

In ''[[Philosophy:Beyond Good and Evil|Beyond Good and Evil]]'' and ''[[Philosophy:On the Genealogy of Morality|On the Genealogy of Morality]],'' Nietzsche's genealogical account of the development of modern moral systems occupies a central place. For Nietzsche, a fundamental shift took place during the 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 and other ruling castes of ancient civilizations. Aristocratic values of good and bad coincided with and reflected their relationship to lower [[Social:Caste|caste]]s such as slaves. Nietzsche presented this "master morality" as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with [[Biography:Homer|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|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|access-date=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=28 September 2019}}</ref>

"Slave morality" developed as a reaction to master morality. 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 saw slave morality as pessimistic and fearful, its values emerging to improve the self-perception of slaves. He associated slave morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions, as it is born out of the ''[[Philosophy:Ressentiment|ressentiment]]'' of slaves. Nietzsche argued that the idea of equality allowed slaves to overcome their own conditions without despising themselves. 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 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 saw 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 called for exceptional people not to be ashamed in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which he deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. He cautioned, 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 |access-date=28 September 2019}}</ref>

A long-standing assumption about Nietzsche is that he preferred master over slave morality. However, eminent Nietzsche scholar [[Biography:Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Walter Kaufmann]] rejected this interpretation, writing that Nietzsche's analyses of these two types of morality were used only in a [[Philosophy: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/books?id=wvKRUSdUsnkC&q=Master+slave+morality&pg=PA213 |title=From Shakespeare to existentialism|isbn=978-0-691-01367-1|last1=Kaufmann|first1=Walter Arnold|year=1980}}</ref> On the other hand, Nietzsche 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|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|page=Section 228}}</ref> Nietzsche waged a philosophic war against the slave morality of Christianity in his "revaluation of all values" 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|pages=31–38, 60–106}}</ref>

In ''Daybreak,'' Nietzsche began his "Campaign against Morality".{{Sfn |Kaufmann |1974 |p=187}}{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888d |loc=M I}} He called himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticized the prominent moral philosophies of his day: Christianity, [[Philosophy:Kantianism|Kantianism]], and [[Philosophy:Utilitarianism|utilitarianism]]. Nietzsche's concept "[[Philosophy:God is dead|God is dead]]" applies to the doctrines of [[Religion:Christendom|Christendom]], though not to all other faiths: he claimed that [[Religion:Buddhism|Buddhism]] is a successful religion that he complimented 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 constantly did.{{Sfn |Sedgwick |2009 |p=26}} He condemned institutionalized Christianity for emphasizing a morality of [[Philosophy:Pity|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 in 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'' Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems based on a dichotomy of [[Good and evil|good and evil]] a "calamitous error",{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888d |loc=Why I Am a Destiny, §&nbsp;3}} and wished to initiate a [[Philosophy:Transvaluation of values|re-evaluation]] of the [[Philosophy:Value (ethics)|values]] of the Christian world.{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888c |pp=4, 8, 18, 29, 37, 40, 51, 57, 59}} He indicated 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 ''[[Philosophy:On the Genealogy of Morality|On the Genealogy of Morality]],'' he explicitly condemned antisemitism and pointed 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 claimed 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 85% of the negative comments are attacks on Christian doctrine or, sarcastically, on Richard Wagner.<ref name="GolanNietzsche">{{cite book |last1=Golan |first1=Zev |title=God, Man and Nietzsche |date=3 June 2007 |publisher=iUniverse, Inc. |location=Lincoln, Neb. |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 ([[Biography:Baruch Spinoza|Baruch Spinoza]]), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world".<ref name="Nebraska">Nietzsche, Friedrich. [1878] 1986. ''[[Philosophy:Human, All Too Human|Human, All Too Human]]: A Book for Free Spirits''. University of Nebraska Press. p. 231.</ref>

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

The statement "[[Philosophy:God is dead|God is dead]]," occurring in several of Nietzsche's works (notably in ''[[Philosophy:The Gay Science|The Gay Science]]''), has become one of his best-known remarks. On the basis of it, many 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 [[Philosophy:Atheism|atheist]]; others (such as Kaufmann) suggest that this statement reflects a more subtle understanding of divinity. Scientific developments and the increasing [[Philosophy:Secularization|secularization]] of Europe 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 [[Philosophy:Nihilism|nihilism]], the belief that nothing has any inherent importance and that life lacks purpose. Nietzsche believed that Christian moral doctrine provides people with [[Philosophy:Intrinsic value (ethics)|intrinsic value]], belief in God (which [[Philosophy:Theodicy|justifies]] the evil in the world), and a basis for [[Philosophy:Objectivity|objective knowledge]]. In constructing a world where objective knowledge is possible, Christianity is an antidote to a primal form of nihilism—the despair of meaninglessness. As [[Biography:Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]] put the problem, "If God as the supra sensory ground and goal of all reality is dead if the supra sensory 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 called ''passive nihilism,'' which he recognized in the [[Philosophy:Pessimism|pessimistic]] philosophy of [[Biography:Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]]. Schopenhauer's doctrine—which Nietzsche also referred to as Western Buddhism—advocates separating oneself from will and desires to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterized this [[Philosophy:Asceticism|ascetic]] attitude as a "will to nothingness". 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; this "will to nothingness" is still a (disavowed) form of willing.<ref>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 do not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, [[Social:Suffering|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 [[Biography:Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Walter Kaufmann]]}}

Nietzsche approached the problem of nihilism as a deeply personal one, stating that this problem of the modern world had "become conscious" in him.<ref>Nietzsche, ''KSA'' 12:7 [8]</ref> Furthermore, he emphasized 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 a 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 interpreted the death of God with what he explained as the death of [[Philosophy:Metaphysics|metaphysics]]. He concluded 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. |title=Why Heidegger's 'History' of Metaphysics is Dead |url=https://www.academia.edu/11651293 |journal=American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly |volume=78 |issue=3 |pages=425–443 |issn=1051-3558 |doi=10.5840/acpq200478325 |year=2004}}</ref>

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

A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical outlook is the "[[Philosophy:Will to power|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}}<!-- undefined here {{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 a 'struggle for existence.'{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888b |loc=Skirmishes of an untimely man, §&nbsp;14}} More often than not, self-conservation is 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 then popularly embraced, such as Schopenhauer's notion of an aimless will or that of [[Philosophy:Utilitarianism|utilitarianism]]. Utilitarians claim that what moves people is the desire to be happy and 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>[[Biography:Brian Leiter|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 a consequence of overcoming hurdles to one's actions and the fulfillment of the will.{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1888c |loc=§&nbsp;2}}

Related to his theory of the will to power is his speculation, which he did not deem final,{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1886 |loc=I, §&nbsp;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 [[Philosophy:Atomism|atomism]]—the idea that matter is composed of stable, indivisible units (atoms). Instead, he seemed to have accepted the conclusions of Ruđer Bošković, who explained the qualities of matter as a result of an interplay of forces.<ref group="lower-roman">Nietzsche comments in many notes about the matter being a hypothesis drawn from the metaphysics of substance.

Whitlock, G. 1996. "Roger Boscovich, Benedict de Spinoza and Friedrich Nietzsche: The Untold Story." ''Nietzsche-Studien'' 25. p. 207.</ref>{{Sfn |Nietzsche |1886 |loc=I, §&nbsp;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 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, §&nbsp;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.<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 |s2cid=170737246 }}</ref> According to these scholars, the "burning" story supports their thesis that Nietzsche rejected his project on the will to power at the end of his lucid life. However, a recent study (Huang 2019) shows that although it is true that in 1888 Nietzsche wanted some of his notes burned, this 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 the critique of morality while touching upon the "feeling of power" only once.<ref name=":3">{{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 |s2cid=171864314 }}</ref>

=== Eternal return ===
{{Main|Philosophy: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, for an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. It is a purely [[Physics:Physics|physical]] concept, involving no supernatural [[Philosophy:Reincarnation|reincarnation]], but the return of beings in the same bodies. Nietzsche first proposed the idea of eternal return in a parable in Section 341 of ''[[Philosophy:The Gay Science|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 considered it as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and said that its burden is the "heaviest weight" imaginable ("'' das schwerste Gewicht''").<ref>{{cite book |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 [[Biography:Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]]'s praise of denying the will‐to‐live. To comprehend eternal recurrence, and to not only come to peace with it but to embrace it, requires ''[[Philosophy:Amor fati|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/books?id=4dLeWFK6qp0C&pg=PA201|isbn=978-0-521-81250-4 }}</ref> As Heidegger pointed out in his lectures on Nietzsche, Nietzsche's first mention of eternal recurrence presents this concept as a [[Thought experiment|hypothetical ''question'']] rather than stating it as fact. According to Heidegger, it is the burden imposed by the ''question'' of eternal recurrence—whether it 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. [[Biography:David Farrell Krell|David Farrell Krell]]. New York: Harper and Row, 1984. 25.</ref>

Nietzsche suggests that the universe is recurring over infinite time and space and that different versions of events that have occurred in the past may take place again, hence "all configurations that have previously existed on this earth must yet meet".<ref name="Vintage Books">{{Cite book|last=Nietzsche|first=Friedrich|title=The Gay Science with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs|url=https://archive.org/details/gaysciencewithpr00niet_596|url-access=limited|date=1974|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=978-0-394-71985-6|edition=1st|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/gaysciencewithpr00niet_596/page/n32 16]|translator-last=W. Kaufmann}}</ref> With each repeat of events is the hope 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...."<ref name="Vintage Books" />

[[Biography:Alexander Nehamas|Alexander Nehamas]] writes in ''Nietzsche: Life as Literature'' of three ways of seeing the eternal recurrence:

# "My life will recur in exactly identical fashion:" this expresses a totally [[Philosophy:Fatalism|fatalistic]] approach to the idea; 
# "My life may recur in exactly identical fashion:" This second view conditionally asserts [[Astronomy:Cosmology|cosmology]], but fails to capture what Nietzsche refers to in ''The Gay Science'', p.&nbsp;341; and finally,
# "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 concluded that, if individuals constitute themselves through their actions, 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 |last=Van Tongeren |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TqxrlA9Qxg0C&pg=PA295|title=Reinterpreting Modern Culture: An Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophy|publisher=Purdue University Press|year=2000|isbn=978-1-55753-157-5|page=295|access-date=18 April 2013}}</ref>

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

Another concept important to understanding Nietzsche is the ''Übermensch'' (Superman).<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>{{Sfn |Lampert |1986}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rosen |first=Stanley |title=The Mask of Enlightenment |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995}}</ref> Writing about nihilism in ''Also Sprach Zarathustra'', Nietzsche introduced an ''Übermensch''. 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 mankind not aware of the problem to which the overman is the solution."{{Sfn |Lampert |1986 |p=18}} Zarathustra presents the ''Übermensch'' as the creator of new values, and he appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and nihilism. The ''Übermensch'' does not follow the morality of common people since that favors mediocrity but rises above the notion of [[Good and evil|good and evil]] and above the "[[Biology: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 the ''Übermensch''. He wants a kind of spiritual evolution of self-awareness and overcoming of traditional views on morality and justice that stem from the [[Unsolved:Superstition|superstition]] beliefs still deeply rooted or related to the notion of God and Christianity.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=van der Braak|first=Andre|date=31 March 2015|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>

From ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' (Zarathustra's Prologue; pp 9-11):<ref>{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Clancy |last2=Higgins |first2=Kathleen M. |last3=Solomon |first3=Robert C. |last4=Stade |first4=George |title=Thus Spoke Zarathustra |date=2005 |publisher=Barnes & Noble Books |location=122 Fifth Avenue New York, Ny 10011 |isbn=978-1-59308-384-7 |pages=9–11 |edition=First}}</ref>

{{quote|text=''I teach you the Übermensch''. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just the same shall man be to the Übermensch: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any ape. Even the wisest among you is only a conflict and hybrid of plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants? Behold, I teach you the Übermensch! The Übermensch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Übermensch ''shall be'' the meaning of the earth... Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Übermensch—a rope over an abyss... What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an ''over-going'' and a ''going under''.}}

Zarathustra contrasts the ''Übermensch'' with the [[Philosophy:Last man|last man]] of egalitarian modernity (the 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 [[Philosophy: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 ''Übermensch'' 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 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120607060856/http://www.nietzschespirit.com/files/The_Most_Despicable_Man_is_Coming...the_Last_Man.html |archive-date=7 June 2012 }}</ref>

Some<ref>{{Cite book|last=Deleuze, Gilles, 1925–1995.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8763853|title=Nietzsche and philosophy|date=1983|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=0-231-05668-0|location=New York|oclc=8763853}}</ref> have suggested that the eternal return is related to the ''Übermensch'', since willing the eternal return of the same is a necessary step if the ''Übermensch'' is to create new values untainted by the spirit of gravity or [[Philosophy:Asceticism|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 ''Übermensch'', 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 ''Übermensch'' to will the eternal recurrence. Only the ''Übermensch'' 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.
[[File:Wochenspruch der NSDAP 9 April 1939.jpg|thumb|''Wochenspruch der NSDAP'' 9 April 1939: "What does not kill me makes me stronger."]]
The Nazis attempted to incorporate the concept into their ideology by means of taking Nietzsche's figurative form of speech and creating a literal superiority over other ethnicities. 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 nationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with [[Social:Fascism|fascism]] and [[Social:Nazism|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, NJ: Princeton University Press.</ref> 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, [[Social:Pan-Germanism|pan-Germanism]] and, to a lesser extent, [[Social:Nationalism|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<!-- is it Johannes Heinrich August Ebrard? -->, 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 [[Social:Nazism|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 of modern society and culture. He believed the press and mass culture led to conformity, brought about mediocrity, and the lack of intellectual progress was leading to the decline of the human species. In his opinion, some people would be able to become superior individuals through the use of will power. By rising above mass culture, those persons 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]]

A trained philologist, Nietzsche had a thorough knowledge of Greek philosophy. He read [[Biography:Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[Biography:Plato|Plato]], [[Biography:John Stuart Mill|Mill]], [[Biography:Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]] and [[Biography:Afrikan Spir|Spir]],<ref>Brobjer, Thomas. "Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library, 1885–1889". ''Journal of History of Ideas.''</ref> who became the main opponents in his philosophy, and later engaged, via the work of [[Biography:Kuno Fischer|Kuno Fischer]] in particular, with the thought of [[Biography:Baruch Spinoza|Baruch Spinoza]], whom he saw as his "precursor" in many respects<ref>"Letter to Franz Overbeck, 30 July 1881"</ref><ref>Jason Maurice Yonover: Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Philosophical Etiology (On the Example of Free Will), in: European Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming).</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 asked: "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 [[Biography:George Eliot|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 lectured 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-Platonic, especially Heraclitus, who emerges as a pre-Platonic Nietzsche."{{Sfn|Nietzsche|2001|p=xxxvii}} The pre-Socratic thinker [[Biography:Heraclitus|Heraclitus]] was known for rejecting the concept of [[Philosophy:Being|being]] as a constant and eternal principle of the universe and embracing "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}} Due to his Heraclitean sympathies, Nietzsche was also a vociferous critic of [[Biography:Parmenides|Parmenides]], who, in contrast to Heraclitus, viewed the world as a single, unchanging Being.{{Sfn|Roochnik|2004|p=48}}

In his ''Egotism in German Philosophy'', [[Biography: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 [[Biography:François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)|La Rochefoucauld]], [[Biography:Jean de La Bruyère|La Bruyère]] and [[Biography: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", §&nbsp;3}} The [[Philosophy:Organicism|organicism]] of Paul Bourget influenced Nietzsche,<ref>Le Rider, Jacques. 1999. ''Nietzsche en France. De la fin du XIXe siècle au temps présent''. Paris: PUF. pp. 8–9, as cited in Grzelczyk, Johan. 2005. "[http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4 Féré et Nietzsche: au sujet de la décadence]" {{in lang|fr}}. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061116213847/http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4|date=16 November 2006}}. via ''HyperNietzsche.''</ref> as did that of Rudolf Virchow and Alfred Espinas.<ref>Wahrig-Schmidt, B. 1988. "Irgendwie, jedenfalls physiologisch. Friedrich Nietzsche, Alexandre Herzen (fils) und Charles Féré 1888." ''Nietzsche Studien'' 17. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 439, as cited in Grzelczyk, Johan. 2005. "[http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4 Féré et Nietzsche: au sujet de la décadence]" {{in lang|fr}}. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061116213847/http://www.hypernietzsche.org/navigate.php?sigle=jgrzelczyk-4|date=16 November 2006}}. via ''HyperNietzsche.''</ref> In 1867 Nietzsche wrote in a letter that he was trying to improve his German style of writing with the help of [[Biography:Gotthold Ephraim Lessing|Lessing]], [[Biography:Georg Christoph Lichtenberg|Lichtenberg]] and Schopenhauer. It was probably Lichtenberg (along with [[Biography:Paul Rée|Paul Rée]]) whose aphoristic style of writing contributed to Nietzsche's own use of aphorism.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V4DDxmM0T9EC&q=Nietzsche+neo-Kantians&pg=PA58 |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 [[Biology:Darwinism|Darwinism]] through [[Biography:Friedrich Albert Lange|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 [[Biography:Ralph Waldo Emerson|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/books?id=BSQJgIKTJ7QC&q=Nietzsche+Hippolyte+Taine&pg=PA194 |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">Montinari, Mazzino. 1996. '''La Volonté de puissance' n'existe pas''. Éditions de l'Éclat. §&nbsp;13.</ref> [[Biography: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=§&nbsp;45}} While Nietzsche never mentions [[Biography:Max Stirner|Max Stirner]], the similarities in their ideas have prompted a minority of interpreters to suggest a relationship between the two.<ref>[[Biography:Karl Löwith|Löwith, Karl]]. 1964. ''From Hegel to Nietzsche''. New York. p. 187.</ref><ref>Taylor, S. 1990. ''Left Wing Nietzscheans: The Politics of German Expressionism 1910–1920''. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. p. 144.</ref><ref>[[Biography:Gilles Deleuze|Deleuze, Gilles]]. 2006. ''Nietzsche and Philosophy'', translated by H. Tomlinson. pp. 153–54.</ref><ref>Solomon, R. C., and K. M. Higgins. 1993. ''The Age of German Idealism''. [[Company:Routledge|Routledge]]. p. 300.</ref><ref>Samek, R. A. 1981. ''The Meta Phenomenon''. New York. p. 70.</ref><ref>Goyens, T. 2007. ''Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City''. Illinois. 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 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141226203214/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/holderli.htm |archive-date=26 December 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He also expressed deep appreciation for Stifter's ''Indian Summer'',<ref name="Meyer-Sickendiek, Burkhard 2004. p. 323">Meyer-Sickendiek, Burkhard. 2004. "Nietzsche's Aesthetic Solution to the Problem of Epigonism in the Nineteenth Century." In ''Nietzsche and Antiquity: His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition'', edited by P. Bishop. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer. p. 323.</ref> Byron's ''Manfred'' and Twain's ''Tom Sawyer''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Eh4YJfNeO7QC&q=Nietzsche+Adventures+of+Tom+Sawyer&pg=PA19 |title=Nietzsche, Philosopher of the Perilous Perhaps |first=Peery |last=Rebekah|isbn=978-0-87586-644-4 |year=2008 }}</ref>

== Reception and legacy ==
[[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 [[Philosophy:Georg Brandes|Georg Brandes]] aroused considerable excitement about Nietzsche through a series of lectures he gave at the [[Organization:University of Copenhagen|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 [[Philosophy:Individualism|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 [[Social: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>Ewald, O. 1908. "German Philosophy in 1907." ''The Philosophical Review'' 17(4):400–26.</ref><ref>Riley, T. A. 1947. "Anti-Statism in German Literature, as Exemplified by the Work of John Henry Mackay." ''PMLA'' 62(3):828–43.</ref><ref>Forth, C. E. 1993. "Nietzsche, Decadence, and Regeneration in France, 1891–1895." ''[[Philosophy:Journal of the History of Ideas|Journal of the History of Ideas]]'' 54(1):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|last=Mencken|first=H. L.|url=https://archive.org/details/gistnietzsche00mencgoog|title=The Gist of Nietzsche |location=Boston |publisher=J.W. Luce |year=1910}}</ref> Nietzsche is known today as a precursor to [[Philosophy:Existentialism|existentialism]], [[Philosophy:Post-structuralism|post-structuralism]] and [[Philosophy:Postmodern philosophy|postmodernism]].<ref>Aylesworth, Gary. [2005] 2015. "[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/#1 Postmodernism]." ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''. §Precursors.</ref>

W. B. Yeats and Arthur Symons described Nietzsche as the intellectual heir to [[Biography:William Blake|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|doi-access=free }}</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=University of 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 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612202020/http://www.fathom.com/feature/61007/ |archive-date=12 June 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N9H1vjyOMswC&q=Arthur+Symons+Nietzsche&pg=PA231 |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''): "O masterly [[Unsolved:Debunker|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 Donald Mitchell noted that Gustav Mahler was "attracted to the poetic fire of Zarathustra, but repelled by the intellectual core of its writings". He also quoted Mahler himself, and adds that he was influenced by Nietzsche's conception and affirmative approach to nature, which Mahler presented in his 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'' on the same book), was only interested in finishing "another chapter of symphonic autobiography".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yKCq909vSpwC&q=Mahler+Nietzsche+influence&pg=PA99 |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,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Holdheim|first=William W.|date=1957|title=The Young Gide's Reaction to Nietzsche|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/young-gides-reaction-to-nietzsche/FFE35D5DC1DF62BF689A575434934BC1|journal=PMLA|language=en|volume=72|issue=3|pages=534–544|doi=10.2307/460474|jstor=460474|issn=0030-8129}}</ref> [[Biography:August Strindberg|August Strindberg]],<ref>{{Citation|last=Dahlkvist|first=Tobias|title=By the Open Sea—A Decadent Novel?|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv47w3xd.13|work=The International Strindberg|pages=195–214|publisher=Northwestern University Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctv47w3xd.13|isbn=978-0-8101-6629-5|access-date=2021-05-28}}</ref> Robinson Jeffers,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Carpenter|first=Frederic I.|date=1977|title=Robinson Jeffers Today: Beyond Good and Beneath Evil|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2925556|journal=American Literature|volume=49|issue=1|pages=86–96|doi=10.2307/2925556|jstor=2925556|issn=0002-9831}}</ref> Pío Baroja,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Murphy|first=Katharine|date=2020-05-27|title=Spanish Modernism in Context: Failed Heroism and Cross-Cultural Encounters in Pío Baroja and Joseph Conrad|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/14753820.2020.1726630|journal=Bulletin of Spanish Studies|volume=97|issue=5|pages=807–829|doi=10.1080/14753820.2020.1726630|s2cid=214389935|issn=1475-3820}}</ref> D.H. Lawrence,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Colin.|first=Milton|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/797149190|title=Lawrence and Nietzsche : a study in influence|date=1987|publisher=Aberdeen University Press|isbn=0-08-035067-4|oclc=797149190}}</ref> Edith Södergran<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mier-Cruz|first=Benjamin|date=2021-02-05|title=Edith Södergran's Genderqueer Modernism|journal=Humanities|volume=10|issue=1|pages=28|doi=10.3390/h10010028|issn=2076-0787|doi-access=free}}</ref> and [[Biography:Yukio Mishima|Yukio Mishima]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Wagenaar|first1=Dick|last2=Iwamoto|first2=Yoshio|date=1975|title=Yukio Mishima: Dialectics of Mind and Body|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1207783|journal=Contemporary Literature|volume=16|issue=1|pages=41–60|doi=10.2307/1207783|jstor=1207783|issn=0010-7484}}</ref>

Nietzsche was an early influence on the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Paine|first=Jeffery M.|date=1986|title=Rainer Maria Rilke: The Evolution of a Poet|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40257012|journal=The Wilson Quarterly |volume=10|issue=2|pages=148–162|jstor=40257012|issn=0363-3276}}</ref> Knut Hamsun counted Nietzsche, along with [[Biography:August Strindberg|Strindberg]] and Dostoyevsky, as 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/books?id=fbrV_fwgcq4C&q=Nietzsche+Jack+London&pg=PA44 |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'' was based on Nietzsche.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7q2AHsyTuo4C&q=Nietzsche+Jack+London&pg=PR19 |title=A Sun of the Son|isbn=978-0-8061-3362-1|last1=London|first1=Jack|year=2001}}</ref> Nietzsche's influence on [[Biography:Muhammad Iqbal|Muhammad Iqbal]] is most evidenced in ''Asrar-i-Khudi'' (''The Secrets of the Self'').<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ftpGJy0DPbYC&q=Iqbal+Nietzsche&pg=PA57 |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 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120429020746/http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/stevens.php |archive-date=29 April 2012 }}</ref> was another reader of Nietzsche, and elements of Nietzsche's philosophy were found throughout Stevens's 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/books?id=3m7_U1UdeRgC&q=Wallace+Stevens+Nietzsche&pg=PA112 |title=The Cambridge Companion to Wallace Stevens|isbn=978-1-139-82754-6|last1=Serio|first1=John N|year= 2007}}</ref> [[Biography:Olaf Stapledon|Olaf Stapledon]] was influenced by the idea of the ''Übermensch'' and it is a central theme in his books ''Odd John'' and ''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 influenced Russian symbolism<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fo2QqyyFCR4C&q=Merezhovsky+Nietzsche&pg=PA12 |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/books?id=Ppvr3LZ8o2wC&q=Merezhkovsky+Nietzsche&pg=PA35 |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/books?id=f5cUEHHchNAC&q=Andrei+Bely+Nietzsche&pg=PA117 |title=Nietzsche and Soviet Culture: Ally and Adversary |first=Rosenthal |last=Bernice|isbn=978-0-521-45281-6 |date=1994 }}</ref> [[Biography:Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet)|Vyacheslav Ivanov]] and [[Biography:Alexander Scriabin|Alexander Scriabin]] incorporated or discussed parts of Nietzsche philosophy in their works. [[Biography:Thomas Mann|Thomas Mann]]'s novel ''Death in Venice''<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hJZm5QWgxC4C&q=Thomas+Mann+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'' 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 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130123020205/http://nietzschecircle.com/essayArchive5.html |archive-date=23 January 2013 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/12474|title=Doctor Faustus|website=medhum.med.nyu.edu}}</ref> [[Biography:Hermann Hesse|Hermann Hesse]], similarly, in his ''Narcissus and Goldmund'' presents two main characters as opposite yet intertwined Apollonian and Dionysian 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'' 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 [[Social:World War I|World War I]], Nietzsche had acquired a reputation as an inspiration for right-wing German [[Social:Militarism|militarism]] and leftist politics. German soldiers received copies of ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' as gifts during World War I.<ref>{{cite book |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 provided 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 [[Social: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/books?id=TOMrUcFiU0UC&q=A.+D.+Gordon+Nietzsche&pg=PA48 |title=The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites nor Crusaders|isbn=978-1-139-50520-8|last1=Ohana|first1=David|year= 2012}}</ref> and [[Biography:Martin Buber|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/books?id=9RHqWPIC0QQC&q=Andre+Malraux+Nietzsche&pg=PA419 |title=Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist |first=Kaufmann |last=Walter|isbn=978-1-4008-2016-0 |year= 2008 }}</ref> [[Biography:Israel Eldad|Israel Eldad]], the ideological chief of the Stern Gang that fought the British in Palestine in the 1940s, wrote about Nietzsche in his underground newspaper and later translated most of Nietzsche's books into [[Social: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> [[Biography:Eugene O'Neill|Eugene O'Neill]] remarked that ''Zarathustra'' influenced him more than any other book he ever read. He also shared Nietzsche's view of [[Social:Tragedy|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> The plays ''The Great God Brown'' and ''Lazarus Laughed'' are examples of Nietzsche's influence on him.<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/books?id=LnnSlZMp0oAC&q=Lazarus+Laughed+Nietzsche&pg=PA201 |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/books?id=g1whggReJx4C&q=Nietzsche+Eugene+O%27Neill&pg=PA40 |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 [[Philosophy:Frankfurt School|Frankfurt School]] philosophers [[Biography:Max Horkheimer|Max Horkheimer]] and [[Biography:Theodor W. Adorno|Theodor W. Adorno]]<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/adorno/ |title=Adorno, Theodor}}</ref> can be seen in the ''[[Philosophy:Dialectic of Enlightenment|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/books?id=A2NxFq1C7uIC&q=I+have+come+to+the+conclusion+that+Nietzsche+is+probably+a+greater+thinker+than+Marx&pg=PT351 |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 [[Place:Nazi Germany|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, it may not have been extensively.<ref group="lower-roman">Trevor-Roper, Hugh. [1972] 2008. "Introductory essay for 'Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944 Secret Conversations'." In ''The Mind of Adolf Hitler''. Enigma Books. p. xxxvii:

"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 afterward presented to Mussolini, was often on his lips."</ref><ref group="lower-roman">Kershaw, Ian Hitler: ''Hubris 1889–1936''. W. W. Norton. p. 240:

"'Landsberg,' Hitler told Hans Frank, was his 'university paid for by the state.' He read, he said, everything he could get hold of: Nietzsche, [[Biography:Houston Stewart Chamberlain|Houston Stewart Chamberlain]], Ranke, Treitschke, [[Biography:Karl Marx|Marx]], Bismarck's Thoughts and Memories, and the war memoirs of German and allied generals and statesmen.... 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 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."</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. 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, [[Biography:Henri Bergson|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/books?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>{{cite book |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> [[Biography:Bertrand Russell|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">{{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 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofwestern00russ/ }}</ref>

A decade after World War II, there was a revival of Nietzsche's philosophical writings thanks to translations and analyses by [[Biography:Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)|Walter Kaufmann]] and R.J. Hollingdale. [[Biography:Georges Bataille|Georges Bataille]] was also influential in this revival, defending Nietzsche against appropriation by the Nazis with his notable 1937 essay "Nietzsche and Fascists".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bataille|first=Georges|date=January 1937|title=Nietzsche and Fascists|url=http://i.a.m.free.fr/acephale/nietzsheetlesfascistes.html|journal=Acéphale}}</ref> Others, well known philosophers in their own right, wrote commentaries on Nietzsche's philosophy, including [[Biography:Martin Heidegger|Martin Heidegger]], who produced a four-volume study, and [[Biography:Lev Shestov|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 |year=1969 |isbn=978-0-8214-0053-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/dostoevskytolsto0000shes }}</ref> [[Biography:Georg Simmel|Georg Simmel]] compares Nietzsche's importance to ethics to that of Copernicus for [[Astronomy:Cosmology|cosmology]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.philosophynow.org/issues/29/Nietzsche_and_Germany |title=Nietzsche & Germany |first=Sorgner |last=Stefan}}</ref> Sociologist [[Biography:Ferdinand Tönnies|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, [[Biography:Jean-Paul Sartre|Jean-Paul Sartre]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D6fM0jqDVFgC&q=Nietzsche+Sartre+influence&pg=PA142 |title=Philosophy in Literature|isbn=978-0-8386-3652-7|last1=Rickman|first1=Hans Peter|year=1996}}</ref> [[Biography:Oswald Spengler|Oswald Spengler]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Oswald_Spengler |title=Oswald Spengler |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520200025/http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Oswald_Spengler |archive-date=20 May 2013 }}</ref> [[Biography:George Grant (philosopher)|George Grant]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/george-grant|title=George Grant|website=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]]|access-date=31 August 2019}}</ref> [[Biography:Emil Cioran|Emil Cioran]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sJp6tGCgO-8C&q=Emil+Cioran+Nietzsche&pg=PA17 |title=Romanian Philosophical Culture, Globalization, and Education|isbn=978-1-56518-242-4|last1=Tat|first1=Alin|last2=Popenici|first2=Stefan|year=2008}}</ref> [[Biography:Albert Camus|Albert Camus]], [[Biography:Ayn Rand|Ayn Rand]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://sites.google.com/wisc.edu/lesterhunt|title=Lester Hunt's Web Page|website=sites.google.com}}</ref> [[Biography:Jacques Derrida|Jacques Derrida]],<ref>Derrida, J. & Attridge, D. (1992).{{Cite book|title="This Strange Institution Called Literature"|chapter="This Strange Institution Called Literature": An Interview with Jacques Derrida|date=2017-09-25|chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203873540-2|work=Acts of Literature|pages=33–75|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9780203873540-2|isbn=978-0-203-87354-0|access-date=2021-05-28}}</ref> [[Biography:Sarah Kofman|Sarah Kofman]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kofman|first=Sarah|title=Nietzsche and metaphor|publisher=A&C Black|year=1993}}</ref> [[Biography:Leo Strauss|Leo Strauss]],<ref>{{Cite book |first=Laurence |last=Lampert |title=Leo Strauss and Nietzsche |location=Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1996}}</ref> [[Biography:Max Scheler|Max Scheler]], [[Biography:Michel Foucault|Michel Foucault]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Foucault|first=Michel|title=Language, Counter-Memory, Practice|chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781501741913-008/html|chapter=Nietzsche, Genealogy, History|date=1980|pages=139–164|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-1-5017-4191-3|language=en|doi=10.1515/9781501741913-008|s2cid=158684860}}</ref> [[Biography:Bernard Williams|Bernard Williams]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Williams|first=Bernard|title=Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality|chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520914049-017/html|chapter=13. Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology|date=1994-12-31|pages=237–248|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-91404-9|language=en|doi=10.1525/9780520914049-017}}</ref> and [[Biography:Nick Land|Nick Land]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Land, Nick.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1176303181|title=Fanged noumena collected writings 1987–2007|date=2019|publisher=Urbanomic/Sequence Press|others=Brassier, Ray., Mackay, Robin., Recorded Books, Inc.|isbn=978-0-9832169-4-0|location=[S.l.]|oclc=1176303181}}</ref> Camus described Nietzsche as "the only artist to have derived the extreme consequences of an aesthetics of the [[Philosophy:Absurdism|absurd]]".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bmq7AAAAIAAJ&q=Kafka+Nietzsche&pg=PA186 |title=The Absurd in Literature|isbn=978-0-7190-7410-3|last1=Cornwell|first1=Neil|year=2006}}</ref> [[Biography:Paul Ricœur|Paul Ricœur]] called Nietzsche one of the masters of the "school of suspicion", alongside [[Biography:Karl Marx|Karl Marx]] and Sigmund Freud.<ref name="Ricœur">{{Cite book |last=Ricœur |first=Paul |title=Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation |url=https://archive.org/details/freudphilosophye00rico_826 |url-access=limited |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven and London |year=1970 |page=[https://archive.org/details/freudphilosophye00rico_826/page/n42 32] |isbn=978-0-300-02189-9 }}</ref> [[Biography:Carl Jung|Carl Jung]] was also influenced by Nietzsche.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6163.html|title=Jung's Seminar on Nietzsche's Zarathustra|date=1997|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-01738-9|editor-last=Jarrett, J. L.|edition=abridged|access-date=22 August 2014}}</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 |access-date=22 August 2014}}</ref> Aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, especially his ideas of the self and his relation to society, run through much of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century thought.<ref name="Belliotti">Belliotti, Raymond A. 2013. ''Jesus or Nietzsche: How Should We Live Our Lives?'' [[Company:Rodopi (publisher)|Rodopi]].</ref><ref>Kuipers, Ronald A. 2011. "Turning Memory into Prophecy: Roberto Unger and Paul Ricoeur on the Human Condition Between Past and Future." ''The Heythrop Journal'' (2011):1–10.</ref> Nietzsche's writings have also been influential to some advancers of [[Philosophy:Accelerationism|Accelerationist]] thought through his influence on [[History:Deleuze and Guattari|Deleuze and Guattari]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Deleuze, Gilles, 1925–1995.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/370411932|title=Anti-Oedipus : capitalism and schizophrenia|date=2009|publisher=Penguin|others=Guattari, Félix, 1930–1992., Foucault, Michel, 1926–1984.|isbn=978-0-14-310582-4|location=New York|oclc=370411932}}</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 [[Biography:Cornelius Castoriadis|Cornelius Castoriadis]] to [[Biography:Roberto Mangabeira Unger|Roberto Mangabeira Unger]].<ref>Rorty, Richard. [1987] 1988. "Unger, Castoriadis, and the Romance of a National Future." ''Northwestern University Law Review'' 82: 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'']]
* ''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)
* ''[[Philosophy:Human, All Too Human|Human, All Too Human]]'' (1878)
* ''The Dawn'' (1881)
* ''[[Philosophy:The Gay Science|The Gay Science]]'' (1882)
* ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' (1883)
* ''[[Philosophy:Beyond Good and Evil|Beyond Good and Evil]]'' (1886)
* ''[[Philosophy:On the Genealogy of Morality|On the Genealogy of Morality]]'' (1887)
* ''The Case of Wagner'' (1888)
* ''Twilight of the Idols'' (1888)
* ''The Antichrist'' (1888)
* ''Ecce Homo '' (1888; first published in 1908)
* ''Nietzsche contra Wagner'' (1888)
* ''The Will to Power'' (various unpublished manuscripts edited by his sister Elisabeth; not recognized as a unified work after ca 1960)

== See also ==
{{cols|colwidth=21em}}
* ''[[Biology:The Ascent of Man|The Ascent of Man]]''
* Difference (poststructuralism)
* ''Dionysos''
* [[Philosophy:Existential nihilism|Existential nihilism]]
* Faith in the Earth
* [[Philosophy:Friedrich Nietzsche and free will|Friedrich Nietzsche and free will]]
* [[Religion:Manusmriti|Manusmriti]]
* Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner
* [[Religion:Rigveda|Rigveda]]
* ''When Nietzsche Wept'' film about his life
* [[Philosophy:World riddle|World riddle]]
{{colend}}

== References ==

=== Notes ===
{{Reflist|35em|group=lower-roman}}

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

=== Bibliography ===
{{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, N.Y.}}
* {{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 |title-link = Nietzsche and Philosophy }}
* {{cite book |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=HBCsgS7k7lAC&q=Arnold+Zweig+Nietzsche&pg=PA185 |title = Nietzsche and Jewish culture |editor-first=Jacob |editor-last=Golomb |publisher=Routledge |year=1997 |isbn = 978-0-415-09512-9 }}
* {{cite book |last=Heidegger |first=Martin |title=The Word of Nietzsche}}
* {{cite book |last=Hollingdale |first = R. J. |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={{wipe|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 |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, Conn. |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1986 |isbn = 978-0-300-04430-0}}
* {{cite book |last=Roochnik |first=David |title = Retrieving the Ancients |year=2004}}
* {{cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |year=2004 |title = A History of Western Philosophy |publisher=Routledge}}
* {{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 |year=1916}}
* {{cite book |first = Peter R. |last=Sedgwick |title = Nietzsche: the key concepts |location = Routledge, Oxon, England |publisher=Routledge |year=2009}}
* {{cite book |first=Kathleen |last=Higgins |title = What Nietzsche Really Said |publisher = University of Texas; Random House |year=2000 |ref=higgins }}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin|2}}
* {{Cite book|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.
* {{cite book|last1=Baird|first1=Forrest E|first2=Walter|last2=Kaufmann|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|title=Pious Nietzsche: Decadence and Dionysian Faith|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=2007|page=296}}
* Breitschmid, Markus, ''Der bauende Geist. Friedrich Nietzsche und die Architektur''. Lucerne: Quart Verlag, 2001, {{ISBN|3-907631-23-4}}
* 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 a new preface, epilogue, and bibliography, 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, Torino, 2007
* Corriero, Emilio Carlo, "Nietzsche's Death of God and Italian Philosophy". Preface by Gianni Vattimo, Rowman & Littlefield, London – New York, 2016
* 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 |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |year=2008 |publisher= Sage; [[Organization:Cato Institute|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) }}
* Huskinson, Lucy. "Nietzsche and Jung: The whole self in the union of opposites" (London and New York: Routledge, 2004)
* Kaplan, Erman. ''Cosmological Aesthetics through the Kantian Sublime and Nietzschean Dionysian''. Lanham: UPA, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
* [[Biography: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.&nbsp;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}}
* {{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}}
* Prideaux, Sue, ''I Am Dynamite! A Life of Nietzsche'' (Faber & Faber (UK) and Tim Duggan Books (US), 2018)
* 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|access-date=18 August 2018}}
* [[Biography: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}}
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* Waite, Geoff. (1996), ''Nietzsche's Corps/e: Aesthetics, Prophecy, Politics, or, The Spectacular Technoculture of Everyday Life'', Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
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* Young, Julian. ''Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography'' (Cambridge University Press; 2010) 649 pp.
{{Refend}}

== External links ==
* [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]
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/friedrich-nietzsche}}
* {{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 |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}}
* [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 |year=2010 |volume=14 |url=http://www2.swgc.mun.ca/animus/Articles/Volume%2014/9_Kierans.pdf |issn=1209-0689 |access-date=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 [[Biography:Brian Leiter|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}}
* [[Biography:Rick Roderick|Rick Roderick]] (1991) [http://rickroderick.org/200-guide-nietzsche-and-the-postmodern-condition-1991/ Nietzsche and the Postmodern Condition (1991)] Video Lectures
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