Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the 16 books that is part of the SSRC Philosophers Series called “Free Thinkers.” The series is an attempt to present the teachings of many of the great philosophers throughout history in a way that average readers without academic backgrounds can easily understand. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a modern German philosopher, professor, and philologist (one who studies language) who was most inclusive of diverse historical views. He was among the few to mount a global critique of religious and metaphysical dualism, refusing at every point the usual distinctions between ‘inner and outer’ selves, ‘real and apparent’ worlds, and ‘transcendent and immanent’ God(s). He was amont the first to reverse Cartesian dependence on logic and scepticism about truth. He replaced the ‘perfect’ rational God of René Descartes with the trickster Dionysus (Greek god of nature and emotion; the antithesis of the orderly, logical Sun god of Apollo), as better suited to dramatize human passions, limitations, and tragedy. Through his works ranging from Human, All Too Human to The Joyous Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Ecce Homo, Nietzsche expanded the scope of philosophy to include science alongside irrational instincts, feelings, psychology, art, history, and politics – all aspects necessary to a broad understanding of existential experience of the ‘meaning of life.’ Nietzsche critiqued every intellectual posture and most contemporary philosophers for their narrow materialist or spiritualist analytics. He sought wholeness and integration, authenticity, and truth in every particular.