Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Key Concepts and Terms
Appearance: Apparent World View
For Nietzsche, the tragic artist is vital. If reality is pure devenir (becoming), it cannot be grasped by the concept, but by the metaphor, since this does not provide an unambiguous meaning (objectivity) but accepts the plurality and subjectivity of it (perspective). Therefore, art is the only appropriate tool for understanding life. It asserts the multiplicity and subjectivity of reality (becoming) using the metaphor and not the concept. Nietzsche believes that tragedy is the highest form of art because it combines the Apollonian and Dionysian dimensions of life. Tragedy does not intend targets or origins out of this world, but says the reality, life, as we appear, even in its most enigmatic, irrational, terrible, and painful aspects. The tragic artist, selecting and editing reality, does not hide or deny it, but accepts and assumes it in all its fullness. This acceptance of life in all its fullness makes the tragic artist the true “philosopher.” Nietzsche’s philosophy is a tragic vision of life into a work of art, which is all that the German philosopher gives true value and meaning to human existence. For this reason, the tragic artist is the model of the human being above the saint, the scientist, or the philosopher.
Causa Sui: Cause of Itself
Causa Sui is a Latin expression that applies only to God, being given the existence itself, or that exists because of its very being. It is self-subsistent nature because otherwise, there would be another.
Supreme Concepts
These are expressions that refer to rational categories that philosophers have used to refer to the “real” reality of the intelligent world. These concepts describe the characteristics of the “real world”: it is, substance, unity, identity, cause. For Nietzsche, these “highest concepts” do not refer to anything real but are terms that our reason makes to refer to a world invented by our jealousy and cowardice before the reality of becoming.
Dehistoricize
This is the process by which Parmenides-Platonic philosophers eliminate the dynamic nature of reality. History should not be understood here as a science or as the succession of events to human beings, but in a broader sense as the continuous becoming of the real. To say what it is to be is to become. For this reason, saying that reality is immutable, identical to itself (being Parmenides, the Platonic Ideas, or Cartesian substances) and what changes is only appearance, philosophers have “dehistoricized” reality.
Devenir (Becoming)
Devenir is a term that means being as a process, and that includes all types of change: movement, change, generation, corruption. From Greek philosophy, to speak of being as “becoming” marks the opposition to being as “static”. The affirmation of becoming, of being mutable, is identified with a dynamic conception of reality, the only conception that, according to Nietzsche, receives its true “historic” nature.
Dionysian/Apollonian
The Apollonian, which is modeled after the god Apollo, would represent the ideal of beauty and finished forms, measure, order: characteristics of reason. The Dionysian, which is modeled after Dionysus, would represent excess, clutter, unfinished: the values of the land, the characteristics of life. Both poles are needed and mutually stimulate each other: the extent and extravagance are the essence of all. The most complete expression is the Greek tragedy. But this Apollonian-Dionysus unit will be truncated from Socrates. The dissociation of these values is at the core of Western culture and represents the subjugation of life to reason, for the Apollonian Dionysian, as the last resort, involves the dissolution of both. These two concepts are also the two trends that live in people. Only those who know how to unite the human artistic dimension achieve their own life, standing beyond good and evil. Thus, aesthetic reflection appears as a model of philosophical reflection.
God
This is a concept in philosophy that has brought together all the positive values and attributed the “real world” for her created. Thus, God is being and is characterized because it is causa sui, immutable, perfect, and infinitely good. It is the highest supreme concept of all other beings. Nietzsche considers that this concept, precisely because it is the highest, is the most empty. He called it “the last smoke of reality.”