Nietzsche, Friedrich, (1844-1900)
German philosopher,
whose works had a deep influence on late 19th and early 20th century European
literature, philosophy, and psychology.
Thought
Nietzsche does not
fit any ordinary conception of the philosopher.
No philosopher's
ideas can be adequately paraphrased in a few words, least of all those of a
thinker who was also a poet and who spurned systems. A few suggestions,
however, may distinguish his actual views from those imputed to him by popular
misconception. He believed that all life evidences a will to power, and that
human behavior can be better understood with this in mind. He derided the
military and political power of the young German Empire. What men want most, he
held, is power over self and creative mastery. More brutal forms of power are
sought only as substitutes. Hopes for a higher state of being after death are
explained as compensations for failures in this life. The other world is an
illusion, and instead of worshipping gods in an alleged beyond, man should
concentrate on his own elevation, which Nietzsche symbolizes in the superman (Übermensch).
The superman is the passionate man who can employ his passions creatively
instead of having to extirpate them. It was Nietzsche who first gave the term
"sublimation" its modern sense.
Nietzsche
criticized Christianity for its otherworldiness and found resentment at the
heart of the Christian religion resentment of this world, of the body, of
sex, of the critical intelligence, of everything strong and healthy. One speaks
of Christian love, but according to Nietzsche the early Christian
"loved" his enemies to make sure that he himself would go to heaven,
from where he hoped to behold the torments of his former enemies in hell.
Generosity and nobility Nietzsche associated with the "master
morality" of the ancient Greeks.
Apollonian
and Dionysian are terms used by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy to designate the two central principles
in Greek culture. These are terms for the twin principles which Nietzsche
detected in Greek civilization in his early work Die Geburt der Tragödie (The Birth of
Tragedy, 1872). Nietzsche
was challenging the usual view of Greek culture as ordered and serene,
emphasizing instead the irrational element of frenzy found in the rites of
Dionysus (the god of intoxication known to the Romans as Bacchus).
Nietzsche associated the
Apollonian tendency with the instinct for form, beauty, moderation, and
symmetry. The Apollonian, which corresponds to Schopenhauer's principium individuationis
("principle of individuation"), is the basis of all analytic
distinctions. Everything that is part of the unique individuality of man or
thing is Apollonian in character; all types of form or structure are
Apollonian, since form serves to define or individualize that which is formed;
thus, sculpture is the most Apollonian of the arts, since it relies entirely on
form for its effect. Rational thought is also Apollonian since it is structured
and makes distinctions.
The Dionysian (or
Dionysiac) instinct was one of irrationality, violence, and exuberance. The Dionysian, which corresponds roughly to
Schopenhauer's conception of Will,
is directly opposed to the Apollonian. Drunkenness and madness are Dionysian
because they break down a man's individual character; all forms of enthusiasm
and ecstasy are Dionysian, for in such states man gives up his individuality
and submerges himself in a greater whole: music is the most Dionysian of the
arts, since it appeals directly to man's instinctive, chaotic emotions and not
to his formally reasoning mind.
Nietzsche used the names
Apollonian and Dionysian for the two forces because Apollo, as the sun-god,
represents light, clarity, and form, whereas Dionysis, as the wine-god,
represents drunkenness and ecstasy.
The binary opposition of
the Dionysian and Apollonian has some resemblance to that between classicism
and Romanticiam. Nietzsche believed
that both forces were present in Greek tragedy, and that the true tragedy could
only be produced by the tension between them. In the philosopher’s theory of
drama, the Apollonian (in dialogue) and the Dionysian (in choric song) are
combined in early Greek tragedy, but then split apart in the work of Euripides;
he hoped at first that Wagner’s operas would reunite them
Influence
Most of the major
writers and philosophers of 20th century Germany and France were deeply
influenced by Nietzsche, and many have paid lavish tribute to him. The Nazis
made use of some of his doctrines and prepared expurgated editions of some of
his books and, by preference, highly misleading anthologies. But he was deeply
opposed to the tendencies that culminated in National Socialism and did not
have a formative influence on a single major Nazi. On the other hand, no other
philosopher influenced so deeply so many great writers within half a century of
his death, including in Nietzsche's case the novelists Thomas Mann, Hermann
Hesse, André Malraux, André Gide, and Albert Camus; the poets Rainer Maria
Rilke and Stefan George; Jean-Paul Sartre and the German existentialists as
well; and Sigmund Freud, who said of Nietzsche that his "insights often
agree in the most amazing manner with the laborious results of
psychoanalysis" and that "he had a more penetrating knowledge of
himself than any other man who ever lived or was ever likely to live" (Walter Kaufmann, Princeton University).
Finally, another word or two from
Walter Kaufmann:
Nietzsche's
ideas about ethics are far less well known than some of his striking coinages:
immoralist, overman, master morality, slave morality, beyond good and evil,
will to power, revaluation of all values, and philosophizing with a hammer. These
are indeed among his key conceptions, but they can be understood correctly only
in context. This is true of philosophic terms generally: Plato's ideas or
forms, Spinoza's God, Berkeley's ideas, Kant's intuition all do not mean what
they would mean in a non-philosophic context; but scarcely anybody supposes
that they do. In Nietzsche's case, however, this mistake is a commonplace --
surely because few other philosophers, if any, have equaled the brilliance and
suggestiveness of his formulations. His phrases, once heard, are never
forgotten; they stand up by themselves, without requiring the support of any
context; and so they have come to live independently of their sire's
intentions.
[SOURCE: Walter Kaufmann, From Shakespeare to Existentialism: An Original Study
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), pp. 207-8.]