Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Reality, Knowledge, Humanity, and Morality
The Problem of Reality: Metaphysics
Metaphysical reality is traditionally viewed as static, fixed, and immutable. However, true reality is random and varied, characterized by becoming and multiplicity. Philosophy often asserts the true reality of things in their essence, something immutable, static, and permanent. This is evident from Plato’s differentiation between true reality and a false, superficial, apparent one. This invention of a “better world” stems from irrational instincts produced by resentment and fear of life, with philosophers being among the resentful. This need, which Nietzsche calls the “Will to Nothing,” uses reason to affirm reality as static, unchanging, dead, and lifeless. It is a revenge against chance and life’s uncontrollable nature. Against all this, Nietzsche sees reality as a chaos without purpose or a goal. This reality is changing and multiple, and the individual perceives it through perspectives. These perspectives are different individual viewpoints, including every moment of life. Therefore, there is no true perspective, and the “Will to Nothing” is false.
Against this, we need to accept and face reality with a view to changing temporarily to live more fully, which Nietzsche calls the “Will to Power.” Since it recognizes the impossibility of capturing reality as stable, it selects prospects of reality that, although they are not true, enhance life.
The Problem of Knowledge: Epistemology
Concepts are nothing more than metaphors, and metaphors are a process of moving further and further away from the original, the thing itself. The first metaphor is a mental image created by our perception. This image becomes a word expressing our individual and original way of capturing it, becoming the first metaphor. When these metaphors cease to be personal and become public, they are set as concepts. This arises from the need and desire of humans to live in a society. Thus, names and meanings of things are settled to impose certain meanings as correct, not seeking truth, but safety. Over time, people forget their metaphorical origin, using the universal concept (the essence) as the true reality. In this way, philosophy qualifies truth as remote from reality. At the end of the thought process, the concept is considered as the first, the cause, and the origin of the mundane, when it is actually the last metaphor. Nietzsche also criticized positive sciences, which, by mathematizing reality, express it only quantitatively, not qualitatively. For Nietzsche, there is no truth, and what can be considered truth is only that which is conducive to life. The criterion of this truth is the “Will to Power,” which assumes and justifies the need to live in error.
Metaphysics, as a prospect, will be selected among many others to express the way we relate to the world.
The Problem of Humanity: Anthropology
Nietzsche presents a pessimistic view of humanity, describing humans as animals whose only weapon to defend themselves against the world is intelligence. Humans are weak, delicate, and unable to survive, yet they believe themselves to be the center of the universe. Humanity is only a state to reach the *Übermensch* (Superman). Humans suffer from some development throughout their lives, shape-shifting, and after several transformations, they go beyond themselves, reaching the *Übermensch*.
The Problem of Morality: Ethics
The weak individual follows the dogma of traditional morality. This is something unnatural, as it rejects vital instincts. Nietzsche criticizes the rational order established by God, which guides the life of humans with rules and laws that come from something outside of life and the world, from something lifeless, from nothing. God has been the biggest obstacle to life, and it is necessary to deny God to give value to life. Through the words “God is dead,” all traditional values collapse, falling into nothingness, and nihilism emerges. This has two perspectives: a negative one, because with the collapse of values, humans are stunned by their ignorance, and a positive one, giving the death of God a chance for the transmutation of values and the resurgence of the *Übermensch*. New values must be created from the “Will to Power,” from the instincts, to enhance life. This will take place in the *Übermensch*, the evolution from the rational and weak human towards a strong, instinctive individual with a “Will to Power,” a destroyer and creator who constantly accepts the tragedy of life, randomness, multiplicity, and the different perspectives offered.
This development has three states:
- The Camel: Accepting its duty.
- The Lion: The nihilistic force that faces everything and ends with God.
- The Child: Who makes life a game. The latter is the *Übermensch*, who possesses the “Will to Power” and treats life as the eternal return.