Monday, February 27, 2012

Friedrich Nietzsche, (Neechae.)




Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th century anti-Christian philosopher who questioned the value and objectivity of truth.  He grew up well-educated and quickly took interest in poetry and musical compositions.
    Nietzsche rejected the idea of God, and his works remained controversial throughout history due to many misinterpretations, examples including inferences that he rejected religious spirituality entirely.  Nietzsche embraced no established branch of philosophy, and created all of his ideas independently.  He believed that men must accept that they are a part of a material world, regardless of what else might exist, and as a part of this world, men must live as if there is nothing else beyond life.  A failure to live, to take risks, is a failure to realize human potential.
    He also developed the idea of “Will to Power”, which sought to explain sympathy in society.  Through evolution, humans crave power to ensure survival.  Darwin’s evolution proposes that to ensure power, organisms should use animalistic instincts to fight for survival.  Nietzsche believes that humans developed a sympathetic society instead to ensure survival, creating the social drive of humanity.
    Lastly, he idealized the perfect person to be a “Superman”; one who defines his own morality.  Nietzsche believed the idea that God is dead, that the Creator is no longer active in human development.  By rejecting faith, the superman can become responsible for his own morality.  However, he decided that no person has reached such a level yet, that people are flawed and “all-too-human”.



Some Popular Quotes:
“Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becomes a mob.”



"Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present."


"What is good? -- All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man."

4 comments:

  1. I found it interesting that Nietzsche was determined to prove that there was no god, yet he often uses the term "superman," a term I infer as a higher being with powers that a normal person would not possess, to describe those around him shareing similar beliefs. Then there is the question of if not in god, then what does he believe? Is he a person who only believes something is real if he can see, touch, sense, smell and/or hear it? Or does he base his beliefs off of what he sees as the most reasonable explanation?

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    1. He seems to reject the idea of a god because he utilizes existentialist thinking to its most literal definition. He himself does not naturally believe in the idea of a god in the time he lived, so he rejected the idea of it. However, he believed that a person who defined his own mortality became a superman. He was one of the first existentialists because he defined his own reality, one which did not include a god, and lived life through his own ordeals, fighting the natural motivations of will to power and striving to become a "superman". So, I'm thinking he does believe in what he sees hears smells etc, as well as his own personal interpretations of this information.

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  2. Iwas wondering about the last part where he said that people are "all too human". That comment makes it seem like there is a higher being than humanity that is able to achieve the for of "perfection", yet Nietzsche denies that existance. Do you believe that there was an experiance in his life that led to him loosing faith in God or any other divine being?

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    1. He was an existentialist, so he himself defined his own life. He saw no reason or supportive evidence for the existance of a god, so he simply dismissed the idea of it. It was not a big deal, in the end it was as simple as deciding a cup of milk is not orange juice. He himself accepted the idea that there was not a god.

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