Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Vitalism and Critique

Nietzsche’s Philosophy and Vitalism

Both Ortega y Gasset and philosopher Nietzsche are considered vitalists, but it is common to note that Nietzsche gives more importance to the role of the body, instincts, the irrational, and the struggle for survival, while Ortega understands vitality from a more historical or biographical perspective. In any case, Nietzsche’s philosophy aims to make life so that the Absolute will serve as a criterion to measure the value of metaphysics and morality present in the history of philosophy.

Masters of Suspicion

Nietzsche is also included in the group of so-called “Masters of Suspicion”: Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx. Freud attributed all psychic life to the influence of the sex drive. Marx attributed any ideological issue to economic interests, and Nietzsche attributes the origin of our moral ideas and our way of life that lies behind them: powerful or weak. In the first case, we speak of Superman and a natural morality, while in the second, we speak of Christianity and an unnatural morality.

Critique of Western Metaphysics

Western metaphysics is nihilistic; it is corrupt from Socrates and Plato. The former was the triumph of reason over life, and the latter built a “real world” versus the “apparent world.” The cause of this “flight from the world,” according to Nietzsche, is that they represent a very decadent spirit of hatred of life, passions, and instincts. All the “great philosophical concepts”—the being of Parmenides, Plato’s Ideas, the Kantian thing-in-itself—have their origin in this hatred of life. Christianity, with all its extensions, such as the postulates of practical reason of Kant, are nothing more than “Platonism for the people”, i.e., an escape from the world because of a life that is down, weakened, weary, condemned. Heraclitus is the only one saved from Nietzsche’s critique; he was the only one who defended the reality of the “apparent world” of becoming. Also, in his critique of Western metaphysics, Nietzsche agrees with Ortega y Gasset that there are no “truths in themselves” but only perspectives, interpretations.

Indirect Influences: Pre-Socratics

The indirect background of Nietzsche goes back to pre-Socratic Greece: his philosophy is close to Heraclitus, especially in his claim of the innocence of becoming, and understanding of evolution as a game. An enemy of Heraclitus and Nietzsche, therefore, is Anaximander, the first philosopher to understand that mere existence is an injustice, a sin that must be purchased with death. In this line of moral condemnation of existence are the proposals of Parmenides, Socrates, and Plato. Both the Being of Parmenides and the world of the Ideas of Socrates and Plato, to Nietzsche, are a symptom of decline, loss of vital force, conviction, and resignation to life. Nietzsche’s philosophy would be closer to the relativistic approach of Protagoras (“there are no facts, only interpretations”) and the moral criticism of the Sophists.

Direct Antecedents: Enlightenment and Schopenhauer

Nietzsche’s direct antecedents can be found in the Enlightenment; for example, Voltaire. Nietzsche shared with the learned criticism of superstition, ecclesiastical power, and the dogmatism of metaphysics. However, Nietzsche rejects the Enlightenment mode of Kant, both the rethinking of metaphysics from the postulates of practical reason and the optimism in his philosophy of history. For Nietzsche, it is neither possible to base Christian dogmas on practical reason, nor is there reason to expect moral progress of mankind.

Nietzsche took from Schopenhauer some basic ideas for his philosophy, such as the critique of German idealism—in the background, it is just a philosophical defense of Christian dogma and morality—the realization that reason is to serve the passions and instincts and not vice versa, as the rationalists believed, and the metaphysical conception of art, whereby it is in works of art that the profound nature of the world and the meaning of human existence is expressed.

Vitalism vs. Positivist Rationalism

Against Positivist rationalism of the late 19th century came the philosophy called Vitalism. Any philosophy that understands Life as more fundamental than Reason is called vitalistic. The most important concepts revolving around vitalistic philosophy are: timing, instinct, irrationality, corporeality, perspective, the value of the individual, change, death, finitude, etc.