Understanding Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Life, Truth, and Power
Nietzsche
Philosophical Thought: You might want life and love her so much that it fascinates you so deeply. But what do we have, and what must we cherish in life? Not the “other life,” but this one, the only one we have, that of the finite, individuality, change, and contradiction: life, with pleasure, fulfillment, and health, is also home to suffering, vulgarity, monotony, disease, and death. Nietzsche, inspired by the Greek Dionysian vision, wanted this life and sought to embellish and dignify it with his concepts of the Superman, the will to power, and the provocative hypothesis of eternal recurrence. At the heart of his philosophy, Nietzsche places life, and after confronting various forms of Platonism found in Western culture, he makes it absolutely finite. Unlike other proposals (such as Zen Buddhism) that share this view of reality (paradoxically making everything finite) and that psychologically and existentially transmute it into joy and reconciliation, Nietzsche did not. He never reached happiness, always accompanied by pain and loneliness, but he loved life.
Background: The period in which Nietzsche lived (1844-1900) was marked by the heyday of nationalism in Europe. He spent most of his life in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, countries to which he was very much connected. In the historical context, after Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and the negotiations of the Congress of Vienna, Prussia greatly benefited and initiated a period of significant development and prosperity. This boom culminated, thanks to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, in the formation of a new Germany, starting the German Reich known as the Second. Meanwhile, in Italy, a reunification of the kingdom was carried out by King Victor Emmanuel II, leading to an approach to Germany during the reign of his son, Humberto I. Finally, Switzerland was also affected by the Napoleonic wars, during which the Helvetic Republic was declared; however, the Congress of Vienna restored its neutrality. The early nineteenth century produced the beginning of what was known as science, due to the rise of scientific creativity at the time. Several philosophical theses arose, such as positivism, utilitarianism, and Marxism, all sharing a common aspect: suspicion and denunciation. Suspicion of the capitalist system, religious suspicion, suspicion of good human feeling, and suspicion of Western values are some of the questions posed by philosophers of this era. In this environment, some sought philosophical opposition to positivism and the Hegelian system: vitalism and historicism. Both currents claim that the artist is endowed with an ability to understand reality that no scientist possesses, excluding reason as a necessary element to explain nature. Nietzsche is considered the most important vitalist, a follower of Schopenhauer’s ideas. Born into a poor family, his life was marked by a brilliant academic career. He was appointed professor of classical philology at the University of Basel at 24 years old, where he worked until 1879, the year in which he began a series of travels in Europe until his collapse in 1888, which led him to madness. His most important works include “The Birth of Tragedy,” “Twilight of the Idols,” “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” “The Gay Science,” and “Beyond Good and Evil.” Nietzschean thought remained alive throughout the entire twentieth century. The Nazi regime manipulated and used his ideas for their theories, and it was not until after World War II that many philosophers attempted to rescue his thought from the wounds of Nazism. His philosophy also influenced existentialism, one of the most important trends of the twentieth century. In turn, theories of the Superman and the death of God were widely criticized, and they still exist in a world where religion is often the only characteristic that defines a culture.
Present: Nietzsche’s influence in the twentieth century has been immense, giving rise to even opposing trends. We can say that his thinking is still very relevant.
His relentless criticism of dogmatic rationalism has greatly influenced the emergence of Freudian psychoanalysis, which asserts that consciousness is only the surface of our inner world, where the shallowness and deceit of usual conscious forms act. The human being is a battlefield of power, with unconscious drives leading to unrest and alienated existence in society.
Nietzsche’s exaltation of the irrational forces of life and nihilism has given rise to one of the most representative philosophical currents of the twentieth century: existentialism. Thinkers like Jaspers, Heidegger, and Sartre are especially indebted to him. From the standpoint of political philosophy, the ambiguity of his discourse has allowed both Nietzschean and Nazi libertarians to claim his teachings for their own ends. The Nazis related the Superman concept to thinkers like Spengler and Rosenberg. Libertarians have made a nihilistic reading inspired by the transmutation of values to achieve a free society. For some neo-Marxists, including Horkheimer, Nietzsche’s vitalism is a legitimate protest against the rigidity of an empty rationalism and the standardization of individual characteristics in capitalist forms of life.
It is also important to note Nietzsche’s influence on the linguistic relativity of Benjamin Lee Whorf, in contemporary philosophy of language, and even in the theory of science.
Finally, it should be noted that Nietzschean influence extends to contemporary Spanish literature and philosophy.
Comparison: For Plato, there is an absolute truth, timeless and necessary, that the philosopher can know beyond the world of change and becoming. Plato thus fights against the relativism of the sophists, who claim that there are no absolute truths. Nietzsche, on the contrary, considers that there are no universal truths, but rather different interpretations of the world, different perspectives shaped by each individual’s will to power. In this sense, Nietzsche is a relativist. Ideas
For Plato, ideas are vehicles of knowledge, but for Nietzsche, they are merely errors caused by language, which omits change, becoming, and every particular essence of reality. Following Nietzsche, he rejects the full Platonic dualism: if the Greek philosopher believed in two worlds, the sensible and the intelligible, then it is apparent that the first is true and the second is not. Sartre, the German philosopher, on the contrary, sees no world but the material world of change and becoming, and this is the real world that the philosopher must know. Knowledge does not develop outside the body and sensitivity, as Plato thought, ruling out sensory experience; instead, it takes the body and sensitivity as true vehicles of knowledge. Since there is no world beyond this, Nietzsche’s philosophy is a preparation for death in the Platonic sense. If Plato believed that death frees us from the world of sense and allows us to know the truth of the intelligible world, Nietzsche, in contrast, believes that the philosopher’s attitude must be the affirmation of life as it is, which becomes the subject of philosophical reflection. What defines the philosopher and his soul is not so much rationality, as Plato thought, but his will to power. Thus, Nietzsche defines truth not from Platonic reason, but from the will. It is the rational soul that Plato knows, but it is the will to power that determines what is true: what makes me stronger. Art becomes, for Nietzsche, a valid means of knowledge, contrary to what Plato thought. If the Greek philosopher expelled artists from the Republic because they only produce images that pervert the youth, the shadows of the cave that the philosopher must leave aside, for Nietzsche, art in the form of music and Greek tragedy reveals the true essence of reality. It is no longer the well-Apollonian sun of Plato, but the revelation that Dionysian life is essentially tragic. Thus, contrary to Plato, Nietzsche thought that error is necessary as a means of preserving life; the truth is only what grows and strengthens life, what gives power.