1

Cataloguing.
Nietzsche’s Lenzer Heide Notes on European Nihilism / By Daniel Fidel Ferrer.
©2020 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.1

All Rights other Reserved.

Intended copies of this work can be used for research and teaching.
No change in content and must include my name, Daniel Fidel Ferrer.

This book first published in the year 2020, July.

Paperback: 177 pages

Publisher: Kuhn von Verden Verlag.
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1979968591
ISBN-10: 1979968594
Includes bibliographical references.

1). Philosophy. 2). Metaphysics. 3). Philosophy, German. 4). Philosophy, German -- 19th
century. 5). Philosophy, German and Greek Influences Metaphysics. 6). Nihilism
(Philosophy). 7). Meaninglessness (Philosophy). I. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900.
II. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-.[Translation from German into English of Friedrich Nietzsche’s
notes of 1887]. Cover graphics copyright by Shawn Rodriguez.

Acknowledgment and dedication

Acknowledgment and dedication to the many German philosophers, that I have had the
pleasure to read and of course disagree. For non-philosophical reasons, I am also dedicating
this book to the people of Khambholaj Village in the Anand District of Gujarat State, India.
To Dr. Alfred Denker and Dr. Dr. Holger Zaborowski for all things Heideggerian. No one
has read this book for errors. As always, any errors, mistakes or oversights etc. are mine alone.
Given a couple more years, I could improve this book. I do these philosophical projects for
my own journey, so you readers are just following along.

The main assumption and conclusion of this book is summarized by

Nietzsche’s thought and his single sentence (Motto):

The tragic era for Europe: due to the struggle with nihilism.
(Das tragische Zeitalter für Europa: bedingt durch den Kampf mit dem Nihilismus).
eKGWB/NF -1886, 7 [31].

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 Table of Contents
Preface ......................................................................................................................................... pages 4-9

Text by Nietzsche. Translation of Lenzer Heide Notes ...................................................pages 10-23

Bibliography and notes ..........................................................................................................pages 24-29

Nietzsche’s Notebooks in English:

a Translator’s Introduction and Afterward .........................................................................pages 30-38
Eternal return of the Same ....................................................................................................pages 39-44
Will to Power ..........................................................................................................................pages 45-50
Spinoza ....................................................................................................................................pages 51-53
Concept of meaninglessness .................................................................................................pages 53-55

Nihilism and Nietzsche Thought .........................................................................................pages 56-71

Chronological Nietzsche’s Thoughts on Nihilism .............................................................pages 72-77
Nietzsche on the Nihilist .......................................................................................................pages 78-83
Nietzsche Contra Metaphysics .............................................................................................pages 84-99
Possible Metaphysical Claims for the idea of Will-to-Power…………………….pages 100-103

Connection of the Will-to-Power and Amor Fati ......................................................... pages 104-108

Anti-metaphysical and perspectivism ............................................................................. pages 108-111

Nietzsche's Metahistory of philosophy .......................................................................... pages 112-117

Who is Nietzsche’s Übermensch (Overman)?............................................................... pages 118-143

Bibliography on Nihilism and Nietzsche ...................................................................... pages 143-162

Martin Heidegger and Nietzsche ..................................................................................... pages 163-172
Book Closing notes ........................................................................................................... pages 173-177

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 Preface
A few preface remarks.
This is the full text of Nietzsche’s Lenzer Heide notes (dated, 10 June 1887). Also called the
Lenzerheide-Fragment. Please note that in Nietzsche’s actual notebook there is space between
the two words: Lenzer Heide. These notes by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) are important
for several reasons. The topics covered are Nihilism, the eternal return of the same, the will to
nothing, Buddhism, Spinoza, morality, Christian, and his concept of meaningless. Of course,
there are many other topics in these notes as well. Nietzsche often has outlined books he
intended to write. I will provide more interpretations and details after the translation. There
are other English translations of various parts of Lenzer Heide notes; however, I have not
reviewed the previous translations for the purpose of this translation. Paul van Tongeren has
written and translated on this topic. I have translated the entire group of notes that start with a
note giving Nietzsche’s location “Lenzer Heide” (Graubünden, Switzerland) dated June 10,
1887 (Lenzer Heide den 10. Juni 1887). From the first note, eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [71] and
then subsection ending at the final note: eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [110]. Also in this publication,
Friedrich Nietzsche. Sämtliche Werke Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden (KSA). Volume
information, KSA 12. Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885-1887, (1967). Section or notebook, five. 5
= NVÜ3. Sommer 1886—Herbst 1887. The Lenzer Heide subsection is from 5 [71] and goes
to section 5 [110]. Pages for this subsection are p. 211-229 (KSA 12). The editor sometimes
use letter spacing as way to emphasis what Nietzsche wrote, for example, “N i h i l i s m u s”;
for the word ‘Nihilismus’.

This is important to note that these notes are not published writing, but they could be call
jottings.
Histocial reference: in 1873, Nietzsche read Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (1862) where he first
read about the word: Nihlism. This was in the French translation of Fathers and Sons. Although
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) had made the term Nihlism popular in his attacked
against Englightment. This was done in 1799 an Open Letter to Fichte (Sendschreiben an Fichte)
written by Jacobi, where he used the term Nihilism in his very public attack against Johann
Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814).

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Additional topics and many more translations covering:
the eternal return of the same, Will to Power, B. Spinoza (1632-1677), concept of
meaninglessness, Nihilism and Nietzsche Thought, Stages or the outline of Nihilism,
Chronological Nietzsche’s Thoughts on Nihilism, and Nietzsche on the Nihilist. Other topics
covered are:

Nietzsche Contra Metaphysics:

Rejection of ontology and Being
Rejection of God
Rejection of metaphysicians
Rejection of the idea of eternal
Rejection of supersensuous
Rejection of Platonism
Rejection of the dignity of humanity (metaphysicians)
Rejection of eternal values
Rejection of immorality

Possible Metaphysical Claims for the idea of Will-to-Power, Connection of Will to Power and
Amor Fati, Anti-metaphysical and perspectivism, Nietzsche's Metahistory of philosophy, and
Bibliographic sources.

Many of the topics discussed have newly translated passages from Nietzsche’s extensive
notebooks translation by Daniel Fidel Ferrer.

Lenzerheide-Fragment.
The following is a quote by Carlo Gentili that succinctly describes the importance and impact
of this specific text for our overall understanding Nietzsche’s mature philosophy.
“Besides giving this interpretation of the project pursued by the fifth book of The Gay Science
(“la gaya scienza”), Stegmaier also interprets it in the light of the successive stages of the
development of Nietzsche’s thought and, in particular, On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) and
the so-called Lenzerheide-Fragment, entitled “European Nihilism” and dated June 10, 1887,
immediately after the preparation of the fifth book of The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”). In
Stegmaier’s view, the Lenzerheide-Fragment is particularly significant in indicating that
Nietzsche abandons two of his fundamental “doctrines”. “The will to power” is presented as
tending towards a nihilistic will to nothing, against which a form of “active nihilism” is
required which, in the last part of the note, Nietzsche describes as the attitude of the “stronger
[die Stärksten],” or those who “do not need extreme articles of faith” (KSA 12, p. 217). And
in proposition 6 of the fragment, Nietzsche defines the eternal recurrence as “the extreme
form of nihilism” and, again, as a will to nothing, as is indicated by his further definition of
nihilism as a “European form of Buddhism” (KSA 12, p. 213). Noted by Carlo Gentili in his
review of Werner Stegmaier, Nietzsches Befreiung der Philosophie. Kontextuelle Interpretation des V.
Buchs der Fröhlichen Wissenschaft.

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Principle conclusion: all of Nietzsche’s philosophical thought can be seen as his response to
the urgent crisis of Nihilism. Countermovement to Nihilism. Needs unpacking. Keep this in
mind as you continue reading.

In addition to the translation of Nietzsche’s texts, I have added commentaries of my own

Nietzsche interpretation and many more translations of Nietzsche’s notes. I find a certain kind
of singular interest in working on Nietzsche’s notebooks. Perhaps the analogy of finding
clarification on Nietzsche ideas – in the raw. Often before Nietzsche has polished them in to
prose, we find in these notes, from Nietzsche’s mind directly to paper; Nietzsche’s thought to
paper as seen in these notebooks. If Heidegger thinks the Nietzsche’s essential proper
(die eige ntliche Philosophie) philosophy is in the notebooks; well then so be it. Keep reading,
please. For some intense philology readings, it is best not to include Nietzsche’s Nachlaß in
any stringent and strict interpretation of Nietzsche’s thinking. On the other hand, if we are
really to engage in Auseinandersetzung (engaging encounter, debate, Heidegger’s interpretative
methodology) with Nietzsche’s thinking; then indeed we must use Nietzsche’s Nachlaß.
Please consider that Nietzsche’s notebooks cover a wide range of writing styles, namely,
jottings, notes, reminders, table of contents of projected books, poems, aphorisms, outlines of
projects, and quotes from his readings. Oh, yes – and he does sometimes cross off his notes
and delete them. See the handwritten examples (see Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital Facsimile
Edition (DFGA) based on the original manuscripts and prints held at the Foundation of
Weimar Classics, edited by Paolo D'Iorio). Please note: it has been remarked that Nietzsche
sometimes would start another notebook from the back pages instead starting in the front of
the notebook. There is a note on how this worked: “working from the back of the notebook
toward the front” (DFGA M-III-2). Nietzsche would also do his own page numbering. Keep
reading.

Heidegger says, "Discovering 'Kant in himself' is to be left to Kant philology" (Kant and the
problem of metaphysics, E.T. p.175). Heidegger says in his work on Hegel the following about his
own Kant interpretation: "Kant - - people refuse to see the problem and speak rather of my
arbitrarily reading my own views into Kant" (Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, E.T. p.147). Has
Heidegger really found Kant or only his own views in Kant and Nietzsche? In the Preface to
the Second Edition (June 1950) to Kant and problem of Metaphysics, Heidegger says, "Readers
have taken constant offense at the violence of my interpretations. Their allegation of violence
can indeed be supported by this text." (Kant and problem of Metaphysics. E.T. p.xx)
Then Heidegger goes on to talk about "thoughtful dialogue between thinkers" and "In a
dialogue the possibility of going astray is more threatening, the shortcomings are more
frequent." (Kant and problem of Metaphysics, E.T. p.xx). Heidegger is not looking for proofs from
Nietzsche. Aristotle says in Book IV of the Metaphysics (1006a), "For it is uneducated not to
have an eye for when it is necessary to look for a proof, and when this is not necessary."

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Heidegger uses this word to descript his encounters with other philosophers:
Auseinandersetzung or critical encounter. The German word “Auseinandersetzung” in the
standard dictionary is translated as a debate. Some translate this German word as
“confrontation”. In addition, Heidegger use the word kampf or struggle this was a word often
used in Germany in the 1930s. For example, Heidegger was to speak of “my struggle” with
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) or Nietzsche. The Greek word that is behind all
of this is polemos (Πόλεμος; "war"). In a very general sense of war--- of fighting over the
nature of “truth” or “philosophy”. [See Heidegger’s letter to Carl Schmidt, August 1933,
where he uses the term: pólemos]. Both Hegel and Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) make a call
“to the things themselves or matters (Sache) themselves” (die Sache selbst). Heidegger wrote
in Kant and Problem of Metaphysics (1929) “every interpretation must necessarily use violence
(Section 35)” All philosophical encounters are a confrontation over the interpretation of our
world. Striking and violence or ripping into others thoughts may happen as needed. Part of
the methodology of philosophy is a stance and a confrontation – this is not scholarly or
merely erudite philology (Greek φιλολογία or philologi). As thinkers, we must confront;
however, not that we can simply reject Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804). First, we must think the
same thoughts as Kant. To be inside Kant’s thinking, inside his mind. Finally, then as scholars
we must at least hear the text. This is a philosophical method (following hermeneutics)
Heidegger versus the mere philology of correct reading of the text. If you want to do
philology, go elsewhere. We are attempting the sphere and space of philosophical reading and
thinking. Insights into Nietzsche’s thoughts.

Immanuel Kant understood the encounter methodology of reading philosophical systems.

Kant wrote:
"I note only that when we compare the thoughts that an author expresses about a subject, in
ordinary speech as well as in writings, it is not at all unusual to find that we understand him
even better than he understood himself, since he may not have determined his concept
sufficiently and hence sometimes spoke, or even thought, contrary to his own intention."
(Critique of Pure Reason. (A314/B370. Year 1781, 2nd edition 1787). Also in the Prolegomena, Kant
remarks, “because the author himself did not even know.” (‘weil die Verfasser selbst nicht
einmal wußten’ AK 4:270. 1783).

Heidegger wrote, “Nietzsche in the works which he saw published. ... a final form and was not
itself published in any book, neither in the decade between 1879 and 1889 nor during the
years preceding. ... His philosophy proper was left behind as posthumous, unpublished
work.” Nietzsche Volume 1, page 9. Nietzsche’s thoughts as he had them are in the notebooks
whereas the published books are polished and presentations. Nietzsche wrote, “I no longer
pay regard to readers: how could I write for readers? ... But I take note, for me.” (KSA XII, p.
450, eKGW VIII-2, p. 114, MGW XIV, 373f.). Johann Hamann (1730-1788) a philosopher
who challenged his readers and came up with a term for his own unique philosophical way as
“metacritique”. Hamann remark, “A writer who is in a hurry to be understood today or
tomorrow runs the danger of being misunderstood the day after tomorrow.” Nietzsche
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mentions reading Hamann in a letter of 1873 to Rohde [BVN-1873, 294 - Letter AN Erwin
Rohde: 31/01/1873]. Clearly, Nietzsche wrote for his posthumously readers (including us).
Nietzsche’s famous saying, “Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some are born
posthumously” (Portable Nietzsche, page 568). Der Antichrist. Fluch auf das Christenthum.
(The Antichrist. Curse on Christianity), Preface.

There are lots of discussions and arguments back and forth on the place of Nietzsche’s
notebooks in the interpretation of Nietzsche’s overall philosophy. Background: there are
physically some 106+ notebooks and about 8000+ pages of notes in the unpublished
(Nachlaß) writings. Nietzsche wrote 15+ books in his lifetime, and there are many other
unpublished writings that are not in just the notebooks. For example, he taught more than 60
courses, starting with SS1869 Über die Persönlichkeit Homers (On the Personality of Homer)
and ending with SS1876 Euripides (Alcestis). [See Nietzsche Channel]. There are many other
unpublished writings. Example: Five Prefaces to Five Unwritten Books given to Cosima Wagner
(Richard Wagner’s the composer wife) as a Christmas present in the year 1872.

Back to the central point: I find it exciting to look into the “workshop” of Nietzsche’s
thinking via his notebooks, so that is why my emphasis is on the notebooks. On the other
hand, there is plenty of Nietzsche’s writings (published and unpublished) to go around for
thinking with Nietzsche – either, the published writings, unpublished writings, or just working
with the notes and notebooks. Yes, and marginalia on the books he was reading (see the
research by Thomas Brobjer). Of course, many of these notes have not been translated from
German to English before and so they come to see the light now in English. This approach
brings the question of methodology, because my approach is not seeking to find the one and
only final overall core of Nietzsche’s philosophy. I will leave that particular project to the likes
of the great philosophers: Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), Ernst Jünger (1895-1998), Karl Löwith
(1897-1973), and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Eugen Fink (1905-1975) among many others.
Depending on the context and the importance of the Nietzsche published writings; I will also
use his published writing as well. Nevertheless, I have used his notebooks extensively in this
publication. Please continue to read.

Nietzsche wrote in 1885:

“Abstract thinking is hardship (stuggle, Mühsal) for many, for me, on good days, a feast and
intoxication.“
[34 = N VII 1. April–Juni 1885].
eKGWB/NF-1885, 34 [130].

I join and request you to become intoxicate with Nietzsche. I certainly have been while
working on this book. Started 29 May 2016. Musical theme: Nietzsche’s favorite opera:
Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg by Richard Wagner.

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Nietzsche’s Text: Lenzer Heide Notes (10 June 1887)
See for example, Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke und Briefe. [Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital
critical edition of the complete works and letters, based on the critical text by G. Colli and M.
Montinari, Berlin/New York, de Gruyter 1967-, edited by Paolo D’Iorio]. Digital Critical
Edition (eKGWB ). Starting with eKGWB NF-1886, 5[71]. Nachgelassene Fragmente Sommer
1886 -- Herbst 1887. Many other editions of Nietzsche’s notes, for example, Musarion edition
of Gesammelte Werke (1920-29) [München] Richard Oehler (editor) total is 23 volumes; but it
has volume 18 (1926) and 19 (1926) as mostly Nietzsche’s notes.

These specific notes entitled “Lenzer Heide” start at 5 [71] and I have translated until 5 [110],
which is a total of 38 notes from Nietzsche’s notebook. I am not sure all of these notes were
written in Lenzerheide (elevation 4800 feet) which is in Switzerland at the foot of the
mountain named Parpaner Rothorn (9500 feet). Group of notes starting with: [5 = N VII 3.
Sommer 1886 — Herbst 1887 5 [1-110]]. Translated here as NF-1886, 5 [71] until NF-1886, 5
[110].

Note the Lenzer Heide fragment: Kritische Studienausgabe or abbreviated KSA, Nachgelassene
Fragmente 1885-1887, Volume 12, starts on page 211 and ends on page 229. Volume 12 is
based on Kritischen Gesamtausgabe: VIII/i, S. 3-348 (Berlin/New York 1974) und
VIII/2, S. 1-248 (Berlin 1970).

For more of my translations of Nietzsche's notebooks see: 11 [1-417] November 1887—

Marz 1888 (Nizza den 24. November 1887). Translated from German to English. Title for
this notebook in English: Nietzsche's Notebook of 1887-1888. By Daniel Fidel Ferrer.
Furthermore, the last 14 notebooks that Nietzsche wrote in his life, I have translated from
German into English and these are entitled: Nietzsche's Last Notebooks 1888. By Daniel Fidel
Ferrer. Remember this is how the editors saw Nietzsche’s last 14 notebooks; since in fact,
Nietzsche often re-used notebooks and wrote from back to front in some of his notebooks.

Translation note. Nietzsche uses both Wiederkunft and Wiederkehr in the expressions
“eternal return” and “eternal recurrence”. Recurrence here is a translation of “Wiederkunft”.
Translation of “Wiederkehr” is return.

The follow citation for the first note: Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke und Briefe. eKGWB/
NF-1886. 5 [71].

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Beginning text of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Lenzer
Heide notes:
eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [71] (KSA Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885-1887, Volume 12, page 211).

The European nihilism.

Lenzer Heide
June 10, 1887

1.
What advantages offered Christian morality hypothesis?
1) They gave the people an absolute value, in contrast to its small size and randomness
in the current of growth and decay
2) They served the advocates of God, insofar as it the world despite suffering and evil
was the character of perfection - counting those "freedom" - the evil appeared full of meaning.
3) They set a knowledge of absolute values of the people and thus gave him just for the
important adequate knowledge they averted that man despised as people that he took up the
life of the party that he despaired of recognition: it was a conservation agent - In summa:
morality was the great antidote to the practical and theoretical nihilism.

2.
However, among the forces who raised the morale, was the truth: this turns finally against
morality, discovered its teleology, it’s interested by viewing - and now affects the insight into
this long inveterate hypocrisy that you desperately authentic (abzuthun) of itself, just as
stimula
But, under the forces, which magnified morality, truth was true: this finally turned against
morality, discovered its teleology, its interest in the subject, and now the insight into this long
established mendacity, which one despairs, is to be dismissed as a stimulant. To nihilism.
For nihilism. We now as certain (constatiren) needs to us, planted by the long moral
interpretation, which we now appear as needs for untruth: the other hand, there are those
where the value appears to hang in respect of which we bear to live. This antagonism, which
we recognize, do not appreciate and what we want to lie to us, no longer to be able to
appreciate: - it follows a process of dissolution.

We now establish needs for us, planted by the long moral interpretation, which now appear to
us as needs to untruth: on the other hand, it is those in whom the value seems to depend, for
which we can endure life. Not to appreciate this antagonism, which we recognize and to no
longer be able to estimate what we are about to lie to: --expects a process of dissolution.

10
 3.
Matter of fact, we have an antidote to the first nihilism no longer necessary: life is no longer
measure (maaßen) uncertain, random, senseless, in our Europe. Such immense multiply
(Potenzirung) the value of man, the value of evil so now is not so necessary, we bear a
significant reduction of this object of value (Werthes), we may much nonsense and random
concede: the achieved power of man now allows a reduction of the disciplinary measures, of
where the moral interpretation was the strongest. "God" is far too extreme hypothesis.

[Thatsächlich haben wir ein Gegenmittel gegen den ersten Nihilismus nicht mehr so nöthig:
das Leben ist nicht mehr dermaaßen ungewiß, zufällig, unsinnig, in unserem Europa. Eine
solchungeheure Potenzirung vom Werth des Menschen, vom Werth des Übels usw. ist jetzt
nicht so nöthig, wir ertragen eine bedeutende Ermäßigung dieses Werthes, wir dürfen viel
Unsinn und Zufall einräumen: die erreichte Macht des Menschen erlaubt jetzt
eine Herabsetzung der Zuchtmittel, von denen die moralische Interpretation das stärkste war.
„Gott“ ist eine viel zu extreme Hypothese.]

4.
But extreme positions are not replaced by discounted, but again by extreme, but reversed.
And so is the belief in the absolute immorality of nature, the purpose [die Zweck] and the
meaninglessness is psychologically necessary affect, if the belief in God and an essentially
moral order is no longer tenable. Nihilism appears now, not because the pain of existence
would be greater than in the past, but because one is ever become suspicious of a "sense" in
evil, even in existence. An interpretation went to reason; but because it was considered the
interpretation, it seems as if there is no meaning in life, as appears if everything was for
nothing.

5.
That this is "vain" the character of our current nihilism remains to be confirmed. The
mistrust of our previous estimates of value increases to the question "are not all" values "bait
with which the comedy is protracted, but is by no closer to a solution?" The duration, with a
"vain", without a goal and purpose, is the most paralyzing idea, especially not if one
understands that one is fooled and yet without power, not to be fooled.

6.
Let us think this thought in its most terrible form: existence as it is, without meaning and
purpose, but inevitably recurring without a finale into nothingness: "the eternal return" [Note:
here it is Wiederkehr].

This is the most extreme form of nihilism: nothingness (the "meaningless") forever!
European form of Buddhism: energy of the substance (Wissens) and the force urges to such a
belief. It is the most scientific of all possible hypotheses. We deny end goals [ultimate]: would
the existence of one, it would have to be achieved.
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[Translators note a clearer sentence would read “We deny end goals: if existence had an end
goal, it would have already been achieved or reached.” However, I think this is re-writing
Nietzsche rather than a translation of what Nietzsche wrote. Your choice.].
[Wir leugnen Schluß-Ziele: hätte das Dasein eins, so müßte es erreicht sein.]

7.

As one understands that here a contrast is desired to pantheism: for "everything perfect,
divine, eternal" also compels to a belief in the "eternal return" [Note: here is ewige
Wiederkunft]. Question: is impossible for all things with morality these pantheistic Yes-
position? Basically, only the moral God is overcome. Does it make sense to a God beyond
"Good” and evil to think? Would a pantheism in this sense possible? Let's get off the idea
purpose of the processes, and we affirm the process anyway? - That would be the case if
something would reach the same within that process at any moment - and always the same
Spinoza gained such affirmative position in so far as each moment has a logical necessity: and
he triumphed with his logical reason instincts about such a world constitution (Spinoza
gewann eine solche bejahende Stellung, insofern jeder Moment eine logische Nothwendigkeit
hat: und er triumphirte mit seinem logischen Grundinstinkte über eine solche
Weltbeschaffenheit).

8.
But his case is only a single case. Each basic trait that is any event basis, which expresses itself
in every event, would, if it would be perceived by an individual as its basic trait that propel this
individual to triumph to approve every moment of universal existence well it had just come to
the fact that one basic trait in this as well, valuable, feels with pleasure.

9.
Now morality has protected life from despair and the leap into nothingness with such people
and objects, which of people violence (waltthätigt) and were depressed: because the
powerlessness against people, not the powerlessness against nature produces that desperation
(desperatischste).
Bitterness toward existence. Morality has rulers that violent, the "masters" ever treated as the
enemies of the common M [fill in word] protected from that, that initially encouraged, must
be strengthened. Morality has therefore hate and despise most profoundly taught, what the
reason of the ruling trait is: their will to power. Cancel this morality deny decompose: that
would provide the most hated drive with a reverse sense and valuation (Werthung). If the
sufferer, suppressed lose faith, to have a right to his contempt of the will to power, it would
occur in the stage of hopeless desperation. This would be the case if this train would be the
life essential, if it appeared that even in that "will to morality" only this "will to power" is
capped, that also that hate and despise is still a desire for power (daß auch jenes Hassen und
Verachten noch ein Machtwille). The oppressed would realize that he is on the same footing
with the oppressor, and that he has no prerogative, no higher rank before that.

12
 10.
Rather vice versa! There is nothing alive, what value has, except to the degree of power - set
up, that life itself is the will to power. Morality guarded the underprivileged against nihilism by
attributing primary each an infinite value, a metaphysical value and classifying in an order that
the secular power and rank was wrong. Taught resignation, humility, etc. Supposing that faith
goes to this moral basis, the underprivileged would no longer have their consolation - and
perish.
11.
The to-reason-go presents to itself as a - self-to-bottom-set when an instinctive reading of
what must destroy. Symptoms of this self-destruction of the underprivileged: the self-
vivisection (Selbstvivisektion), poisoning, intoxication, romance, especially the instinctive
compulsion to actions by which one makes the powerful mortal enemies (- as it were his
executioners even breeding) the will to destruction as the will of a still deeper instinct, the
instinct of self-destruction, the will to nothingness.

12.
Nihilism, as a symptom of the fact that the underprivileged have no consolation: that they
destroy, to be destroyed that they detached from morality, no longer have any reason "to
surrender" - that they are on the bottom of the opposite princips questions and also turn
power want, by forcing those in power to be their executioners. This is the European form of
Buddhism, the No-do, after all existence has lost its "meaning". (Sinn, sense, meaning).

[Nihilismus, als Symptom davon, daß die Schlechtweggekommenen keinen Trost mehr haben:
daß sie zerstören, um zerstört zu werden, daß sie, von der Moral abgelöst, keinen Grund mehr
haben, „sich zu ergeben“ — daß sie sich auf den Boden des entgegengesetzten Princips stellen
und auch ihrerseits Macht wollen, indem sie die Mächtigen zwingen, ihre Henker zu sein. Dies
ist die europäische Form des Buddhismus, das Nein-thun, nachdem alles Dasein seinen
„Sinn“ verloren hat.]

13.
The "necessity" has not become about greater; on the contrary! "God, morality, devotion"
were remedies to terrible deep levels of misery: active nihilism occurs with relatively much
cheaper designed conditions. Even that morality is perceived as overcome, requires quite a
degree of intellectual culture; this again a relative life of luxury (Wohlleben). A certain mental
fatigue, by the long struggle of philosophical opinions to the hopeless Scepsis against
philosophers brought, also denotes the far lower status of those nihilists. Consider the
situation occurred in the Buddha. The doctrine of eternal recurrence [Note: here it is
Wiederkunft] would have scholarly prerequisites (like the teacher Buddha. Such was for
example the concept of causality, etc.).

14.

13
What does "nowadays" mean? Especially physiological? no longer political. The unhealthiest
kind of man in Europe (in every state) is the basis of this nihilism: it will feel the faith in
eternal redemption as a curse, from which one is no longer afraid of no action: to not
passively extinguish, but to extinguish all that to this degree is meaningless and aimless:
although it is only a convulsion, a blind rage in the insight that everything has been there
forever, this moment of nihilism and destructive pleasure. The value of such a crisis is that it
cleanses, crushes the related elements and destroys one another, and assigns common tasks to
people of opposing modes of thought-bringing among them the weaker, more uncertain, and
thus to a rank order of the forces, in the point of view of health, the impulse: recognizing the
commanding as the commanding, the obedient as the obedient. Of course, apart from all
existing social orders.

Aspects of health, the impetus gives: command end of the command recognizing obedient
than those who obey. Of course, apart from all existing societies.

15.
Which will prove the strongest it? The most moderate, those who have no extreme beliefs
necessary that which a good part random, nonsense not only concede but love that which can
think of people with a significant reduction of its value, without becoming small and weak:
richest of health that have grown most mishaps and therefore not be afraid of the mishap so -
people have their power safely, and represent the force reached the people with conscious
pride.

16.
How should think such a person to the eternal recurrence? - [Note: here it is Wiederkunft].

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [72]

Self-destruction of morality honesty

Justice, punishment, compassion, etc.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [73]

Beyond Good and evil

17 arc the 2nd half (17 Bogen die 2te Hälfte)

14
eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [74]

Toward
Genealogy of Morals.
A polemic.
By
Friedrich Nietzsche.

Unconscious, mocking, violent, the wisdom,

--- she is a woman, she always loves only
a war man (warrior, Kriegsmann).
Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Leipzig
Publisher of CG Naumann.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [75]

The will to power.

Attempt a revaluation of all values.

1.
From value of truth.
2.
What follows from this
3.
History of European Nihilism.
4.
Eternal recurrence.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [76]

Moral as Will

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [77]

Sayings and arrows.

By
Friedrich Nietzsche.
Together read from the scriptures
and brought home

15
 By E. V. W.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [78]

Claims
an Immoralists.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [79]

This miserly (mesquinen) age, with which I must somehow come to terms after all, to give a
sample of what psychology in large.
Styles is actually does not make sense; - Who also came to me only with the thousandths of
passion and suffering contrary to conceive may, where one to be aware of such strange and
crucial things comes? ...
And what must have experienced one could all come to conceive (concipiren) with its 25
years, the Birth of Tragedy!
I never complained about the indescribable my privation: never heard a related sound, never
of the same suffering and want.
I myself know no literature books, which have this abundance of spiritual experiences, and
this from the biggest to the smallest and sophisticated (Raffinirtesten). That this but me
basically nobody sees and knows, depends on the fact that I am condemned to live in a time
where the rhinoceros’ flowers, and, moreover, among a people, whichever is lacking in
psychological things any preliminary training (a taken people that Schiller and Fichte seriously
has!!). When I think that such M [fill in word] as R [fill in word] behaved basically like cattle
against me: what is actually - - -

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [80]
8.
Finally, at least in a word, I point to an immeasurable and still undiscovered fact, which has
only slowly and slowly ascertained that there have been no more fundamental problems than
the moral, its driving force is it, from which all the great conceptions in the kingdom (for
example, what is commonly called "philosophy", and this down to its ultimate epistemological
(erkenntnißtheoretische) assumptions). But there are more fundamental problems than the
moral ones: these only come into view when one has the moral prejudice behind them...

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [81]

a) The great style

The nude: psychological cleansing of taste.
b) the synthetic people cannot from the "ant" grow.

16
Our society represent (repräsentirt) only the formation of the "educated" is missing
c) the suicide (Selbsttödtung) Har [ak] iri Japan
d) the right to regain emotions for the knower

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [82]

Law arises only where contracts exist; but there must be a certain balance of power to deal
with. If such an equilibrium is lacking, then if two different quanta of power are encountered,
then the stronger one reaches into the weakening of the weaker one, until finally subjection,
adaptation, classification, incorporation takes place, that is, with the end of two being one, In
order for two to remain two, an equilibrium is necessary, as has been said: and therefore
everything goes back to a previous weighing. It is, therefore, not to be called good - for it
leads astray, if justice is represented with a dare in the hand: the right parable would be to
make justice stand on a scale so as to keep the two shells in equilibrium. But one often
presents the mistake 'wrong': they also put false words into their mouths. Righteousness does
not say, "to everyone his own," but always "just like you, as I am to you". It is the beginning
of all "good will" on earth, that two powers, in proportion to one another, will restrain the
ruthless will to power and not only leave one another equal, but also want to be equal. A treaty
contains not only a mere affirmation with respect to an existing quantum of power, but also
the will to affirm these quanta on both sides as something permanent, and thus to maintain it
to a certain extent: as I said, a germ of all "good will".

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [83]

Here, where we provisionally the problem of esthete [fill in word]. Condition not yet vision
(siren, visiren) from artists, but from the perspective of the viewer
What is the contemplative state and how it is possible, is mainly to explain necessary that it is
not the problem, man has been part of the Philos [fill in word] the contemplative state and the
aesthetic innocently confused and counted in one: but the former is only a prerequisite of the
second and not himself: only the condition, however, as it must be added immediately, this
does not in the sense as if he were about the actual causa and become reason. This would be
totally erroneous claims: the inner
"Must", from which one “esthetic”, will be fundamentally different from the inner
"Must", the consequence is the contemplative state, although the latter, as I said, is a
prerequisite for those and must be achieved so that the aesthetic state can come into existence.
But can just as well after once taken the floor in - - -

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [84]

As many international powers - to rehearse the world perspective.

17
eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [85]

Every year 5 volume (Capitel)

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [86]

And as the Bedouin says, "even the smoke is good for something" - because he betrays him
who is on the road, near a hospitable hearth.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [87]

Pour qu'un homme soit au-dessus de l'Humanité, il en coûte trop cher à tous les autres. [For a
man to be above humanity, it costs too much for all the others].
Montesquieu.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [88]

History of the Jews typical of the emergence of the "idealist". "God and Israel" in league. 1st
Refinement: Only with just Israel remains the righteous God in league. 2) but in the end he
loves Israel, even if it suffers, even if it suffers for the sake of his guilt. etc.

Ancient Israel and the Germans of Tacitus are equal: so are the Arabs of the Bedouin lands
and the Corses. The Genoese from the time when they visited the President de Brosses, and
today.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [89]

Against the big mistake, as if our time (Europe) the highest type of man performing. Rather:
the Renaissance man were higher, and the Greeks also; perhaps we are quite deep: the
"understanding" is not a sign of the highest power, but an efficient fatigue; the moralizations
(Moralisirung) itself is a "decadence".

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [90]

A word of Napoleon (2 February 1809 to Röderer):

"J'aime le pouvoir, moi; mais c'est en artiste que je l'aime ... Je l'aime comme un musicien aime
son violon; je l'aime pour en tirer des sons, the accords, the harmonies.” ["I love power, but I
love it as an artist ... I like it as a musician loves his violin, I love him to draw sounds, the
chords, the harmonies.”].
eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [91]
(Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 Febr. 1887. Taine.)

18
“Plötzlich entfaltet sich die faculté maîtresse: der Künstler, eingeschlossen in den Politiker,
kommt heraus de sa gaine; er schafft dans l’idéal et l’impossible. Man erkennt ihn wieder als
das, was er ist: der posthume Bruder des Dante und des Michel Angelo: und in Wahrheit, in
Hinsicht auf die festen Contouren seiner Vision, die Intensität, Cohärenz und innere Logik
seines Traums, die Tiefe seiner Meditation, die übermenschliche Größe seiner Conception, so
ist er ihnen gleich et leur égal: son génie a la même taille et la même structure; il est un de trois
esprits souverains de la renaissance italienne.” [Vgl. Hippolyte Taine, Napoléon Bonaparte. In:
Revue des deux mondes, Janv.-Févr. 1887 (3e. période: T. 79):721-752.]
Nota bene - - -
Dante, Michelangelo, Napoleon - -

["Suddenly the faculté maîtresse (master faculty) unfolds: the artist, enclosed in the politician,
comes out of its sheath (de sa gaine); He creates in the ideal and the impossible (dans l'idéal et
l'impossible). One recognizes him again as what he is: the posthumous brother of Dante and
Michel Angelo: and in truth, with regard to the fixed contours of his vision, the intensity,
coherence, and inner logic of his dream, the depth of his meditation overhuman
(übermenschliche) size of his conception, so he is equal to the equal: his genius has the same
size and the same structure; he is one of three sovereign spirits of the Italian Renaissance (him
le le égal: son génie a la même taille et la même structure; Il est un de trois esprits souverains
de la renaissance italienne).“ [Vgl. Hippolyte Taine, Napoléon Bonaparte. In: Revue des deux
mondes, Janv.-Févr. 1887 (3e. période: T. 79):721-752].
Nota bene - - -
Dante, Michelangelo,Napoleon - - ].
[Note mixed languages of this note. Translator].

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [92]

From higher men.

Or:
the temptation of Zarathustra.
By
Friedrich Nietzsche.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [93]

Dionysus philosophos.
A
Satura Menippea.
By
Friedrich Nietzsche.

19
eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [94]

The antagonisms:
Problems whose solution are ultimately dependent on the will (of the force -)
1. between strength of the M [fill in word] and duration of the race
2. between the creative power and the "humanity"
3. - - -

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [95]

Not to hear. After such calls from the innermost soul sound of response, which is a terrible
experience ever, where the toughest man can perish: it has lifted me from all bands with living
people.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [96]

Thoughts about the Greeks.

With a foreword
to
Jakob Burckhardt.
By
Friedrich Nietzsche.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [97]

1. The European nihilism.

2. The previous morality as hostile.
3. The previous morality "immoral" even
[1. Der europäische Nihilismus.
2. Die bisherige Moral als lebensfeindlich.
3. Die bisherige Moral „unmoralisch“ selbst.]

20
eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [98]

1. Who thinks about the way in which the type of man can be increased to its greatest
splendor and thickness, which is first of all understand that they have to face outside the
morality because morality was essentially the opposite of those magnificent development
where it was in the course, to inhibit or destroy. Because in fact consumed such a
development such immense quantity of people in their services that a reverse movement is
only natural: the weaker softer middle existences have to make necessary party against those
glory of life and strength plus they have the right to get a new estimate, by virtue of which
they condemn the life of this highest abundance and destroy perhaps. A hostile tendency is
therefore of morality as its own, inasmuch as they seek to overwhelm the strongest types of
life.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [99]

NB
1) Attempt aesthetics to approach through the elimination of the "I" of unegoistic ethics (as
their preparation)
2) Attempt to approximate the knowledge (pure subject "pure mirror of the object")
- On the other hand: the object of aesthetic contemplation, is forged through and through
"Pure will-less painless timeless subject of knowledge"
- By no means "knowledge"!
- The will of all the stresses (and the rest eliminated), which serves him at one objects, pleased
with himself to be harmonious the fiction and prepare to make decision (Zurechtmachung) a
world in which we affirm itself in our innermost needs us

Colors sounds forms movements (Farben Töne Gestalten Bewegungen) - unconscious

memory in action, in which useful qualities of these qualities (or associations) are preserved
a very interested and ruthlessly interested in making things right
an essential falsification, an exclusion of the merely ascertaining cognitive objective sense
the simplification, emphasis of the typical - enjoy the overpowering by inserting a sense
thinking away all damaging and hostile factors in the viewed (e.g., a landscape, a
thunderstorm)
the aesthetic spectator allows an overpowering, and does the opposite of what he otherwise
does against what is coming from outside - he suspends his distrust, not a defensive position -
an exceptional state: the true reverential loving reception
the will ?
Interest in the causes and the typical (Dominirende [dominant or dominating])
[Translator’s note: this is a very broken fragament].

21
eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [100]

Critique of ideals: these so start that abolishing the word "Ideal": criticism of desirables.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [101]

A poor anarchist chaplain, who wants to discuss the whole story with the poison of his hatred,
to persuade us to be the historian.
[einem armen Anarchisten-Schreiteufel ein Ohr schenken, der indem er die ganze Geschichte
mit dem Gifte seines Hasses besprützt, uns einreden möchte, damit der Geschichtsschreiber
zu sein.]

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [102]

A life among cattle!

[Ein Leben unter Hornvieh!]

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [103]

What must be experienced in order to be able to write with the 26-year Birth of Tragedy!

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [104]

ma non si deve fischiar in presenza d'un professore: ciò pecca contro la buona creanza [But
you do not have to whistle in the presence of a professor: it sins against good manners]

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [105]

An action good to the conscience said yes! as if the work would be nice, just because it
thoroughly like the artist! The "value" depends on accompanying pleasurable feelings of
brush [Thäters, German shaving brush]! (- Who expects as vanity, resting in conventional etc.
apart)
On the other hand, all the crucial and valuable activities have been done without that
security...
You must see to judging from objective values (Werthen). Is "the benefit" of the community
such? Yes: only he is usually again confused with the "feeling of pleasure" of the community.
A "bad action" that acts as a stimulant for the community and very unpleasant feelings
aroused first, in so far would be a valuable action.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [106]

Against the herd morality. A declaration of war.

[Gegen die Heerden-Moral. Eine Kriegserklärung.]
22
eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [107]

Critique of "justice" and "equality before the law": what is supposed to be taken away with it?
The tension, hostility, hatred, - but a mistake is that such "happiness" is multiplied: The
Corsicans enjoy luckier than continental.

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [108]

Basic error: to set the targets in the herd and not in single individuals! The herd is a means,
not more! But now you're trying to understand the herd as an individual and ascribe to it a
higher rank than the individual - deepest misunderstanding!!! In the same way (Insgleichen)
what makes earthly (heerdenhaft), the sympathy, as to characterize the more valuable side of
our nature!

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [109]

These Paris poets and romancers of today, fine curious dogs, who pursue "the woman" up to
his most disgusting secrets with excited eyes

eKGWB/NF-1886. 5 [110]

Gury, Compendium theologiae Moralis Ratisb <onae> 1862

Stein, Studies on the Hesychasts 1874
Braid, Hypnotism, German by Preyer 1882
v. Cremer, Cultural history of the Orient
“ History of the ruling ideas of Islam 1868
" Historical forays in the field of Islam in 1873

End of Nietzsche’s Text here.

Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke und Briefe. eKGWB.
KSA Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885-1887, Volume 12, page 211-229 (1966).

Translated from German into English by Daniel Fidel Ferrer.

23
Bibliography and Notes
Friedrich Nietzsche, Digital critical edition of the complete works and letters, based on the critical text
by G. Colli and M. Montinari, Berlin/New York, de Gruyter 1967-, edited by Paolo D’Iorio].
[The Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke und Briefe (eKGWB ) is the digital version of the
German reference edition of Nietzsche’s works, posthumous fragments, and correspondence
edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke. Kritische
Gesamtausgabe, Berlin/New York, de Gruyter, 1967– and Nietzsche Briefwechsel. Kritische
Gesamtausgabe, Berlin/New York, de Gruyter, 1975–). The eKGWB is edited by Paolo D’Iorio
and published by online by the Nietzsche Source]. There are many other editions of
Nietzsche’s notes; for example, Musarion edition of Gesammelte Werke (1920-29) [München]
Richard Oehler (editor) total is 23 volumes.

Note the Lenzer Heide fragment: Kritische Studienausgabe or abbreviated KSA, Nachgelassene
Fragmente 1885-1887, Volume 12, starts on page 211 and ends on page 229. Volume 12 is
based on Kritischen Gesamtausgabe: VIII/i, S. 3-348 (Berlin/New York 1974) und
VIII/2, S. 1-248 (Berlin 1970).

Best source of Nietzsche texts online:

http://www.nietzschesource.org/

See also the Nietzsche Channel included both German and English Texts:
http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/

The Musarion Edition of Nietzsche

(München: Musarion Verlag, 1920-1929).

Volume 1: Jugendschriften (1858-1868)

Volume 2: Kleinere Schriften (1869-1874)
Volume 3: Die Geburt der Tragödie (1869-1871)
Volume 4: Vorträge, Schriften und Vorlesungen (1871-1867)
Volume 5: Vorlesungen (1871-1876)
Volume 6: Philosophenbuch, Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen I & II (1872-1875)
Volume 7: Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen III & IV, Kleinere Schriften (1872-1876)
Volume 8: Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I
Volume 9: Menschliches, Allzumenschliches II
Volume 10: Morgenröthe
Volume 11: Aus der Zeit der Morgenröthe und der fröhliche Wissenschaft (1880-1882)
Volume 12: Die fröhliche Wissenschaft
Volume 13: Also sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885)
Volume 14: Aus dem Zarathustra- und Umwerthungszeit (1882-1888)
Volume 15: Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1885 - 1887)
24
Volume 16: Studien aus der Umwerthungszeit (1882-1888)
Volume 17: Der Fall Wagner; Götzen-Dämmerung; Der Antichrist; Nietzsche
contra Wagner; Kunst und Künstler
Volume 18: Die Wille zur Macht, erstes und zweites Buch (1884-1888)
Volume 19: Die Wille zur Macht, drittes und viertes Buch (1884-1888)
Volume 20: Dichtungen (1859-1888)
Volume 21: Autobiographische Schriften
Volume 22: Sachregister A-L
Volume 23: Sachregister M-Z.

Another source of Nietzsche’s writings is De Gruyter publisher.

“The database Nietzsche Online provides researchers and readers complete online access to the
editions, interpretations and reference works on one of the most important philosophers.
Users thus obtain access to a comprehensive database containing the research results of the
last forty years. In addition to the authoritative editions of the works (KGW) and the
letters (KGB), Nietzsche Online contains all De Gruyter publications on Nietzsche; furthermore,
the database also includes contributions of the journal New Nietzsche Studies. Due to the cross-
referencing to the full texts and the further interpretations, the headwords of the Nietzsche
dictionary have become an even more indispensable basis for the research and understanding
of Nietzsche's work.”

“Contains a variety of content: Works Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke (KGW), Letters

Kritische Gesamtausgabe Briefwechsel (KGB), Nietzsche-Wörterbuch (NWB) [Nietzsche
Dictionary], Titles from the series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung and
Supplementa Nietzscheana, Titles from the new series Nietzsche Heute/Nietzsche Today
(2011 ff.). All further De Gruyter monographs and published volumes relating to Nietzsche,
Individual essays and chapters relating to Nietzsche printed in De Gruyter books and
journals.”

Grossoktavausgabe Nietzsches Werke. (GOA). Leipzig: Kröner, 1901-1913.

16 v. in 8. p., ports. 19 cm. Vols. 9-14 have imprint: Leipzig, C. G. Naumann, 1901-1904.

Follow up translations.
Overall notebook: [5 = N VII 3. Sommer 1886 — Herbst 1887]
eKGWB/NF-1886,5 [71] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Sommer 1886 — Herbst 1887.den 10. Juni
1888 http://www.nietzschesource.org/#eKGWB /NF-1886,5[71]

Note: the expression or word “Lenzer” occurs 3 time in 3 different textual units in Nietzsche
writings. One notebook and then in two letters that are partial translated here from German to
English.

25
1). eKGWB/NF-1886,5 [71] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Sommer 1886 —
Herbst 1887. KSA Volume 12, page 211.
5 [71]
Der europäische Nihilismus.
Lenzer Heide
den 10. Juni 1887
1. Welche Vortheile bot die christliche Moral-Hypothese? 1) sie verlieh dem Menschen einen
absoluten Werth , im Gegensatz zu seiner Kleinheit und Zufälligkeit im Strom des Werdens
und Vergehens
2) sie diente den Advokaten Gottes, insofern sie der Welt trotz Leiden und Übel den
Charakter der Vollkommenheit ließ, — eingerechnet jene „Freiheit“ — das Übel erschien
voller Sinn.
3) sie setzte ein Wissen um absolute Werthe beim Menschen an und gab ihm somit gerade für
das Wichtigste adäquate Erkenntniß sie verhütete, daß der Mensch sich als Menschen
verachtete, daß er gegen das Leben Partei nahm, daß er am Erkennen verzweifelte: sie war ein
Erhaltungsmittel
— in summa:

Moral war das große Gegenmittel gegen den praktischen und theoretischen Nihilismus.“

[“The European nihilism.

Lenzer Heide
June 10, 1887

1.
What advantages offered Christian morality hypothesis?
1) They gave the people an absolute value, in contrast to its small size and randomness
in the current of growth and decay
2) They served the advocates of God, insofar as it the world despite suffering and evil
was the character of perfection - counting those "freedom" - the evil appeared full of meaning.
3) They set a knowledge of absolute values of the people and thus gave him just for the
important adequate knowledge they averted that man despised as people that he took up the
life of the party that he despaired of recognition: it was a conservation agent - In summa: morality
was the great antidote to the practical and theoretical nihilism.]. “ Translation by Daniel Fidel
Ferrer.

26
2). eKGWB/BVN-1887,851 — Brief AN Heinrich Köselitz: 20/05/1887.
Letter.

“Whether I will be in Sils-Maria this summer is uncertain; perhaps Celerina, even more the
Lenzer Heide (where there is a deep forest). But first the "dear soul" must be quiet again, and
the stupid tension in which I am so long as the editing of my earlier literature lasts I have
made it all too clear to myself that I am without a hold and can easily be blown away by a
storm over night..“ Translation by Daniel Fidel Ferrer.

3). eKGWB /BVN-1887,856 — Brief AN Heinrich Köselitz: 08/06/1887.

Letter.
“Dear friend, still a few words before I go on the journey: who knows how long it takes until I
can again take ink and pen on hand - for my destination is uncertain this time (Lenzer Haide
or Celerina or Sils or?) In addition, I urge you to report to you a fact which might perhaps be
combined with you: the Pollini of Hamburg (to which, as I recall, you have some confidence
in courage and independence) This winter with Hans von Bülow agreed: among other things,
a complete Mozart series.“ Translation by Daniel Fidel Ferrer.

Some More General Notes

Manfred Riedel (2000)
Nietzsches Lenzerheide-Fragment über den Europäischen Nihilismus. Entstehungsgeschichte und Wirkung.
Zollikon-Zürich 2000. ISBN 3-906640-99-X.

Manfred Riedel (2010).

“Das lenzerheide-fragment über den europäischen nihilismus.” Nietzsche-Studien, 29(1), pp. 70-
81. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110244472.70.

The following note eKGWB/NF-1886, 5 [70] is just before Lenzerheide notes in the same
notebook. I have included it here because of the themes of Nietzsche’s thoughts are clearly
outlined around the same time. KSA Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885-1887, Volume 12, page 210.

eKGWB/NF-1886, 5 [70]. Summer 1886 1887 NF-1886.

5 [70]

1. Philosophy of history.
2. Psychology.
3. Culture of the Greeks.
4. Philosophy of morality.
27
5. History of Greek Philosophy.
Nihilism: the loss of a total value (namely the moral) the new interpretative forces are missing.
On the history of values.
The will to power and its metamorphoses.
(which was the former will to morality: a school)
The eternal recurrence as a hammer. [translator‘s note here the term is: Wiederkunft].“

Note on the chronology of the notes. In KSA Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885-1887, Volume 12,
the notebook that follows the Lenzer Haide notes are:

6 = Mp XIV 1, S. 416-420. Mp XVII 3 a. Mp XV 2d. P II 12b, S. 37.

Sommer 1886 - Frühjahr 1887. In KSA Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885-1887, Volume 12, page
231.

Brief Chronology of Nietzsche life during this time (1887)

“April through mid-June: Cannobio, Zürich, Chur, Lenz.
Nietzsche works to correct the page proofs for the fifth book of Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft (The
Gay Science) April 12-18, 1887; meets Erwin Rohde in Basel, Switzerland.

While in Zürich (April 28 through May 6, 1887), Nietzsche meets with Meta von Salis, Resa
von Schirnhofer; and visited by Franz Overbeck. In May after an argumentative exchange of
letters with classicist and fellow student Erwin Rohde (1845- 1898); after this exchange
Nietzsche never again meets or writes letters with Erwin Rohde. Lou von Salomé (1861-1937)
announces her engagement to Dr. Carl F. Andreas. Nietzsche meets with Franz Overbeck
(1837-1905) for the last time before the onset of his insanity. In Lenzer Heide, in June 10,
1887 Nietzsche composes the famous note on European nihilism…included here.

Mid-June through September: Sils-Maria (Switzerland).

Sixth summer in Sils-Maria, Switzerland. Long visit by Dr. Meta von Salis, who was the first
female Swiss citizen to receive a doctorate in history from the University in Zürich. Dr. Von
Salis and Nietzsche engage often in deep intellectual discussions. Included was her friend and
roommate, Hedwig Kym. Reunion with schoolmate Paul Deussen. Sudden death of Heinrich
von Stein, of a heart ailment the day after his appointment to the newly created chair of
aesthetics, 20 June 1887 at age 30.

28
22 June 1887: the new editions of Dawn - Thoughts on moral prejudice (Morgenröte – Gedanken über
die moralischen Vorurteile); and Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft [The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”)] are
published. In July 1887, Nietzsche completes work on the manuscript of Zur Genealogie der
Moral [On the Genealogy of Morals] and sends it to his publisher Naumann. On the Genealogy
(written in July and August 1887 during a heat wave; and published in November 1887). See:
https://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/1887.html

21 September 1887, Nietzsche leaves Sils-Maria (Switzerland) for Venice, Italy.

Afterward and Commentary

Overall.

Remember Nietzsche wrote this and published this text as well:

“We are unknown to ourselves, we knowers, we ourselves to ourselves, and there is a good
reason for this. We have never looked for ourselves, —so how are we ever supposed to find
ourselves?” eKGWB VI/2: 259. Preface. On the Genealogy of Morality (1887).

Nietzsche’s Warning to us all:

“5
What tempts one to look at all philosophers half suspiciously, half mockingly, is not that one
comes again and again to find out how innocent they are - how often and how easily they
bother and get lost, in short their childhood and childishness (Kinderei und Kindlichkeit) - but
that they do not talk honestly enough about them: while they all make a great and virtuous
noise as soon as the problem of truthfulness (Wahrhaftigkeit) is even remotely touched. They
all pretend that they have discovered and achieved their true opinions through the self-
development of a cold, pure, divinely-minded dialectic (göttlich unbekümmerten Dialektik)
(unlike the mystics of every rank, who are more honest than they are and more doltish-they
speak of "inspiration") while basically an anticipated sentence, an idea, an "inspiration," usually
an abstracted and sifted-out desire of the heart, is defended by them with reasons sought
afterwards…”
(Beyond Good and Evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future. (Jenseits von Gut und Böse. Vorspiel einer
Philosophie der Zukunft), Prejudices of the Philosophers, #5. 1886). [eKGWB /JGB-5].

29
Nietzsche’s Notebooks in English:
a Translator’s Introduction and Afterward
Fredrick Nietzsche (1844-1900). This translation of Nietzsche’s notes here is not a finished
product and are offered here not as the final philological perfect translation of Nietzsche’s
writings. Indeed, if you are looking for more scholarly publications, then consulate the
extensive German publications on Nietzsche’s unpublished writings called the Nachlaß. There
are 106 separate physical notebooks (Notizheft) written by Nietzsche from 1870 to 1889 that
exist today in the Nietzsche’ archives in Weimar, Germany.

All translations are an interpretation – even mine. Caveats are many: I am not a native speaker
of German, I do not know conversational German, I do not teach the German language, I am
not a philologist, and I cannot read Nietzsche’s handwriting. There are plans for official
translations of these notes that are forthcoming. If you need to quote any of these present
translations, then you must first review the published German texts of the notebooks
(Notizheft). (1) Martin Luther who did the famous translation of the Bible into German wrote
in a letter, “If anyone does not like my translation, they can ignore it… (September 15, 1530)”.
The purpose of these translations is the philosophical understanding of Nietzsche. I have tried
to make Nietzsche readable for philosophical purposes. From these translations, perhaps you
will get a bit of a glimpse into his thinking and thoughts via his own written notes, quotes, and
jottings. Plato said he revised the Republic seven times, which is extreme dedication. In any
case, I am sure if I had re-worked these translations for a few more years, I would have fixed
all of the errors. However, at some time these translation projects reach a point of diminishing
returns on re-working them. Please forgive the errors. Martin Luther (1483-1546), says he had
his two assistants Meister Philip and Aurogallus working so hard on translating part of the
Bible (the chapter on Job) that they had only translated three lines after four days. (2); at this
rate it would take many more decades to translate even a small selection of Nietzsche’s
notebooks.

Translation notes.
I have not tried to fix, polish-up, or clarify Nietzsche’s unpublished writings. Some of the
translator have really refined Nietzsche’s ideas and positions. I have not “fixed” Nietzsche. I
have not dropped or added words or changed the wording to make Nietzsche’s position
clearer or stronger (others have done enough damage). Learn German and read the texts in
German – my best recommendation and advice to you the reader. There are groups on the
internet that work on all the details of translating Nietzsche’s remarks. There are many
nuances and shades of the meaning in attempting to translate anyone’s language. Some words
I could not translate from German and French; and I left those few words in German, but
more words in French. I think most of the French texts are quotes that Nietzsche wrote down
from French authors that he was reading at the time he wrote these notes.
30
Reader beware. There are many historical and philosophical allusions as in all of Nietzsche’s
philosophical writings and these notebooks are similar. Remember these are “notebooks” and
include lots of notes or jottings -- and these are neither fragments nor polished drafts for
publication. Nietzsche may have written these notebooks from back to front and re-used
various notebooks at a later time. In the German text there are missing punctuations marks,
missing quotation marks, missing words, abbreviation of words, miss numbered section,
working table of contents for project books he wanted to publish, projects outlined, quotes
without quote marks. Sometimes there are even personal notes to himself, for example,
“Evening dress warm!” [Autumn 1888 21 [#5]. Some of the published German texts include
‘missing letters and missing words’ filled in by the German language editors to help
understand and polish these actual incomplete notes. Check the published German texts if
you have any questions. The most famous of these single personal notes is when Jacques
Derrida (1930-2004) (Éperons: les styles de Nietzsche, 1978) (3) writes about one note written by
Nietzsche, where Nietzsche wrote, “I have forgotten my umbrella” (“ich habe meinen
Regenschirm vergessen”) [1881 12 = N V 7. Herbst Fall 1881] note [#62]. Perhaps all of
Nietzsche’s notes are in fact similar and are just personal reminders of some kind. I read this
passage in a book and now I am thinking this thought or some thoughts came to him
unexpectedly from out the blue – the thought of eternal return for example. In early August
1881 when he stops by a large pyramidal rock, walking around the lake Silvaplana near Surlei
in Switzerland the thought of the eternal return came to Nietzsche in a flash.

I tried to keep Nietzsche’s overall punctuations; but I did not reproduce any of the italics,
bolding, double-spacing of letters in a word, capital letters, cross-outs, deletions, and
underlining, which can be used to emphasis particular words or edit notes. I am not sure these
puncation marks were done by Nietzsche in any important way (some will disagree on this
point). These emphasizes may have been done by the different enthusiastic editors over time
when moving the text from Nietzsche’s handwritten notes to the text version we have now.
More and more of the handwritten notebook reproductions are coming online, so I suggest
you study the actual handwritten notebooks if you need to focus on the genuine formatting of
the notes. (4) The recent publication of Nietzsche’s writings by Walter De Gruyter publisher
has added extensive additional scholarship to the different versions of these notes in German.
(5) I have added the German (sometime other languages too) words or texts in places I
thought would be helpful using parenthesis ( ). Nietzsche also placed notes in parenthesis, so
this maybe a slight confusing. Again, if you have any questions, please check and review the
precise German texts. All of the specific translator’s notes, I have put in angle brackets
<translator notes>. Sometimes I have placed some alternative translation in the angle brackets
as well.

31
Philosophical note on the content: I do not agree with everything Nietzsche wrote -- and nor
should you. By way, contrary to some philosophers (for example, G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831)
and Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), Nietzsche was not looking for disciples or followers.
Nietzsche wrote, “One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. Now
I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to
you. Verily, my brothers, with different eyes shall I then seek my lost ones; with a different
love shall I then love you.” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 1883-1885, Walter Kaufmann translation.
The Portable Nietzsche, 1972, page 190).

Nietzsche published the following remark about the nature of translating,

“The worst thing that can be translated from one language to another is the pace of their style:
that which has its origin in the character of the race, more physiologically speaking, at the
average rate of its "metabolism." There are honestly meant translations, which are almost
fakes, as involuntary alterations of the original, simply because his brave and amusing tempo
could not be translated, which goes beyond anything dangerous in things and words.”
(Beyond Good and Evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future. (Jenseits von Gut und Böse. Vorspiel einer
Philosophie der Zukunft), Second Division: the free spirit, #28. 1886). [eKGWB /JGB-28].

Like the publications of an author’s book marginalia, it is hard to imagine that Nietzsche
himself would have ever thought that these notebooks would be published or available for the
public to read. Given the few reviews of any of Nietzsche’s published writings and the low
number of published copies printed of his writings during this lifetime; and in fact, he only
knew a few details of about the lectures by Georg Brandes (1842-1927) about Nietzsche’s
philosophy in 1888 at the University of Copenhagen. In Nietzsche’s published autobiography,
Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908) he
thought that eventually he would become incredibly famous and celebrated. Since 1908, many
of his readers have written off Nietzsche’s remarks as coming from his state of mind during
his early stages of his nervous and mental breakdown; rather than predicting his real future
destiny, his influence and general provocation on the western intellectual world. Even in a
non-western culture like China, Nietzsche has a long-standing inspiration on the Chinese
thinkers. (6) I think even Nietzsche would have been amazed at own influence on Chinese
thinking.

32
A small selection of some of Nietzsche’s notes (Nachlaß sometimes spelled “Nachlass”) was
published (1901, 1906) as the Will to Power (7) and this first opened the eyes of the intellectual
public to the golden nuggets of Nietzsche’s unpublished thoughts. Many other philosopher
notebooks are a source of great philosophical import as well. Some general examples:
Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) Notes and fragments; G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831)’s aphorisms from
the wastebook (1803-6); Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts or the
so-called Paris Manuscripts, 1844. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1889-1951) Nachlaß has recently been
put in electronic format; and many other examples: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
[200,000 sheets and 15,000 letters] and Edmund Husserl have extensive Nachlaß materials.
Note that both, Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941) and Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
had made previous arrangements; and had their widows destroy all of their Nachlaß materials
after their deaths.

Why read Nietzsche’s notebooks? The philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) proposed
that if you want to know what Nietzsche was genuinely and authentically thinking – you will
find it in the notebooks; and that the published writings are more for what might be called for
only: ‘public consumption’. (8) Needless to say, you need to decide your own position on the
general worth and value of Nietzsche’s thought and more importantly his own personal
questions marks; and more specifically reading his notebooks. There are other translations of
Nietzsche’s notebooks available as well. (9) Undoubted there will be more future translation
into English of these controversially notes.

Nietzsche wrote:
“I know my destiny (Loos). It will pick up, once my name will be associated with the
recollection (Erinnerung) of something tremendous – a crisis as there was none on earth, the
most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against all that has
been believed, demanded, and hallowed so far. I am not a man, I am dynamite.”
Ecco Homo: how one becomes who one is in "Why I Am a Destiny,” #1. (1888) Amended translated
by Walter Kaufmann. Basic writings of Nietzsche, Modern Language Edition, 2000. p. 782.

The German text reads, “Ich kenne mein Loos. Es wird sich einmal an meinen Namen die
Erinnerung an etwas Ungeheures anknüpfen, — an eine Krisis, wie es keine auf Erden gab, an
die tiefste Gewissens-Collision, an eine Entscheidung heraufbeschworen g e g e n Alles, was
bis dahin geglaubt, gefordert, geheiligt worden war. Ich bin kein Mensch, ich bin Dynamit.”
Ecce homo. Wie man wird, was man ist. The Section: Warum ich ein Schicksal bin, #1, 1888).

In fact, even though Nietzsche published 15+ books during his lifetime, he was not well
known in the intellectual world; nevertheless, Nietzsche is now known worldwide in many
different areas of humanities. He was a radical thinker and critical counter-puncher (polemical
element) to many philosophers and philosophical/religious positions. Example, in his
published work, Beyond Good and Evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future. (Jenseits von Gut und Böse.
Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft), he referees to over 200 authors.

33
“Preface.
1.
In anticipation of having to approach humanity with the heaviest demands ever placed on
them, it seems essential to me to say who I am. Basically you should know it: because I did not
"leave me undecided". But the mismatch between the greatness of my task and the smallness
of my contemporaries has been expressed in the fact that I have been neither heard nor even
seen.” (Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908),
(Ecce homo: Warum ich so klug bin). Preface 1.

Again – Nietzsche has come out of the shadows and long wandering to confront the entire
traditional humanities. The history of the ‘world of ideas’ has been attacked by Nietzsche at
every point.

(1). Largest and latest collections of Nietzsche writings in German:

Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke. 40+ volumes. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967- ).
In print, there are two versions of the Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari edition: the
complete hardbound version (Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke, abbreviated as KGW) and the
paperback version (Kritische Studienausgabe or abbreviated KSA). 134

Some of the standard abbreviations:

BAW means: Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (1934-40). Historisch-Kritische Gesammtsausgabe.

GOA means: Grossoktavausgabe Nietzsches Werke (1901-1913). KGW means Werke: Kritische
Gesamtausgabe (1967). Grossoktavausgabe Nietzsches Werke. (GOA). Leipzig: Kröner, 1901-1913.
16 v. in 8. p., ports. 19 cm. Vols. 9-14 have imprint: Leipzig, C. G. Naumann, 1901-1904.

KSA means Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe (1980).

KSB (KSAB) means Sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe)
KGB means: Briefe: Kritische Gesamtausgabe MA means: Nietzsches Gesammelte Werke
(Musarionausgabe)
MGW means Musarion edition of Gesammelte Werke (1920-29)

The Nietzsche Channel.

http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/

Nietzsche Spuren (many German texts of Nietzsche) http://www.friedrichnietzsche.de/

34
Friedrich Nietzsche bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche_bibliography

The New York Public Library has facsimiles of all of Nietzsche’s papers (except the letters)
that are in the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, Germany. What is actually called: Nietzsche’s
Nachlaß? There are 45 bound volumes. Volumes 1-5 contain the manuscripts for his
published works; volumes 6-8 Nietzsche’s lecture notes; volumes 9-32 philosophical
notebooks; volumes 33-42 memoranda; volumes 43-45 musical compositions.

Nietzsche archive in Weimar started at Weingarten 18, Grochlitzer Straße 7 and then finally to
Villa Silberblick (Humboldtstraße 36).

See also some history of the Nietzsche archives: Zur Geschichte des Nietzsche-Archivs Elisabeth
Förster-Nietzsche, Fritz Kögel, Rudolf Steiner, Gustav Naumann, Josef Hofmiller. Chronik, Studien und
Dokumente. By David M. Hoffmann. (De Gruyter, 1991. 843 pages).

Current address of the Nietzsche Archive is:

Nietzsche Archive
Humboldtstraße 36
99425 Weimar
GERMANY

Note: Nietzsche’s actual library is keep at Duchess Anna Amalia Library.

Die Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek
Besuchsadresse
Platz der Demokratie 1
99423 Weimar
GERMANY

Kontakt
Besucherinformation der Klassik Stiftung Weimar
Frauentorstraße 4
99423 Weimar
GERMANY
Telefon: +49 (0) 3643-545-400. Fax: +49 (0) 3643-41 98 16
info@klassik-stiftung.de

35
(2). An Open Letter on Translating by Martin Luther, dated September 15, 1530.
Translated from "Ein sendbrief D. M. Luthers. Von Dolmetzschen und Fürbit der heiligenn"
in Dr. Martin Luthers Werke, (Weimar: Hermann Boehlaus Nachfolger, 1909), Band 30, Teil II,
pp. 632-646. Revised and annotated by Michael D. Marlowe, June 2003. The English version
of Luther's Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen presented here is a revision of the translation done by Dr.
Gary Mann. Note especially, Philip Melanchthon and Matthew Aurogallus, University of
Wittenberg work in partnership (?) with Luther when he did the translation of the Old
Testament. http://www.bible-researcher.com/luther01.html

(3). Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) (Éperons: les styles de Nietzsche, 1978). Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles,
translation. Barbara Harlow (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.)

(4). Some handwriting examples of Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s handwriting got worst toward end
of his life – his later notes have been transcribed by only a few of the editors (most notable
was his personal friend Peter Gast, whose real name was Johann Heinrich Köselitz (1854 –
1918). He was Nietzsche’s amanuensis. Peter Gast worked on the transcription of the
published writings after 1876. In addition, Peter Gast worked in the Nietzsche archives in
Weimar as an editor from 1899 to 1909 on behalf of Nietzsche’s sister: Elisabeth Förster-
Nietzsche (1846-1935), she started the Nietzsche Archives in 1894 after returning from
Paraguay, South America in 1893.

Digitale Faksimile Gesamtausgabe – Digital facsimile reproduction of the entire Nietzsche

estate, including first editions of works, manuscripts, letters and biographical documents.
More than nine thousand pages are available at present.
http://www.nietzschesource.org/facsimiles/DFGA
Friedrich Nietzsche: Verzeichnis des Briefwechsels 1847 - 1900.
Herausgegeben von der Klassik Stiftung Weimar/Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv Bearbeitet von
Wolfgang Ritschel © Sämtliche Urheberrechte liegen bei der Klassik Stiftung Weimar
http://ora-web.swkk.de/swk-db/niebrief/index.html

Nietzsches Briefe Ausgewählte Korrespondenz. Wahnbriefe 1889.

http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/correspondence/ger/nilettersg.htm
See also some of the recent published volumes in German; for example, Werke: Kritische
Gesamtausgabe; Band 5 Notizheft W I 8 includes a CD-ROM which has unpublished manuscript
facsimiles images on the CD-ROM.

Nietzsche, philosopher, psychologist, antichrist / by Walter Kaufmann. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 1974. The 4th edition, total pages 532. Includes facsimiles of some of
Nietzsche’s handwriting there are 4 letters (on pages 470-482).

36
Nietzsche owned a typewriter, called the Malling-Hansen Writing ball, model 1878, serial
number 125. http://www.malling-hansen.org/friedrich-nietzsche-and-his-typewriter-a-
malling-hansen-writing-ball.html See the book Nietzches Schreibkigel: Ein Blick auf Nietzsches
Schreibmaschinendzeit durch die Restauration der Schreibkugel by Dieter Eberwein, date 2005, pages
77.

(5). Nietzsche, Friedrich. Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe.

Founded by Colli, Giorgio / Montinari, Mazzino. Continued by Gerhardt, Volker / Miller,
Norbert / Müller-Lauter, Wolfgang / Pestalozzi, Karl Together with der Berlin-
Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
[Ca. 40 Bde in 9 Abteilungen]. Example of first volume: Band 1 Nachgelassene Aufzeichnungen
(Anfang 1852 - Sommer 1858). Rev. by Figl, Johann. In collaboration with Hödl, Gerald.
Published in 1995, 397 pages.

(6). Sino-Nietzscheans
Kelly, David A. "The Highest Chinadom: Nietzsche and the Chinese Mind, 1907-1989."
Nietzsche and Asian Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Pages, 151-74.
Alternatively, Nietzsche in China by Lixin Shao. Peter Lang Publishing, 1999, 146 pages.

(7). Der Wille zur Macht by Fredrick Nietzsche (edition 1901, 483 sections; 1906 edition 1067
sections). Most recent English translation The Will to Power: In Science, Nature, Society and Art.
Random House, 1968. Translation by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. This collection
of Nietzsche notes is a complete cut and paste job from his actual notebooks by his sister
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Heinrich Köselitz (also known as "Peter Gast"). Nietzsche
has already discard this title ‘Der Wille zur Macht’ as a book to published by him before he
died. The Will to Power should not be used nor quoted (I will in selected sections). Of course,
over the years, I have read and re-read the English translation of Nietzsche by Walter
Kaufmann and I owe him many thanks for his translations. However, we now know the Will
to Power as a book that the text is faulty (bad cut and paste job). Regarding the issue of the Will
to Power; see for example a philological analysis: Mazzino Montinari, "Nietzsche's Unpublished
Writings from 1885 to 1888; or, Textual Criticism and the Will to Power." Reading Nietzsche.
Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2003, 92-93.

(8). Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) said:

“The actual philosophy remains back as “Nachlaß”. Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche, see other
translation by David Krell. (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), page 9. (Heidegger wrote,
“Die eigentliche Philosophies bleibt als “Nachlaß” zurück”. Nietzsche Volume 1, page 17).
German text published by Pfullingen: Günther Neske Verlag, 1961 in two volumes. Note:
Martin Heidegger usually used this edition of Nietzsche works: Grossoktavausgabe Nietzsches
Werke. (Abbreviated as GOA). Leipzig: Kröner, 1901-1913. 16 v. in 8. p., ports. 19 cm. Vols.
9-14 have imprint: Leipzig, C. G. Naumann, 1901-1904. Nietzsches Werke (Grossoktavausgabe)
(GOA).

37
(9). Translation of selections from Nietzsche’s notebooks:
Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870s. Edited and translation
by Daniel Breazeale. (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1979).

Unpublished Writings from the Period of Unfashionable Observations. Translation Richard T. Gray.
(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1999).

Nietzsche: Writings from the Early Notebooks (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy) by
Raymond Geuss (Editor), Alexander Nehamas (Editor), Ladislaus Löb (Translator). 2009.
Writings from the Late Notebooks. Edited. Rüdiger Bittner and translation Kate Sturge. (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

A few notes on his last years 1888 and 1889: June 26, 1888 to end of July 1888 completed
August 24, 1888 as the The Case of Wagner. A Musician's Problem is assembled and done.
October 1888, he works on his own music for “Hymn to Life” (‘Hymnus an das Leben’)
which was a poem written by Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937). Twilight of the Idols or How to
Philosophize with a Hammer started in August and printing competed mid-November, 1888. The
Antichrist: Curse upon Christianity, written September and November 1888.

Ecco Homo: how one becomes who one is. Begun October 15, 1888 and written until December 29,
1888. In the 1888 summer and up to very early January 1889 writes a number of poems.
January 3, 1889 collapses. Nietzsche writes the so-called madness letter (Wahnbriefe,
Wahnzettel) from January 1 until January 5, 1889, postmarked Turin.

One of the last lines of the last letter Nietzsche wrote,

“Consider, we make a beautiful nice chat, Turin is not far, very serious professional duties are
missing before the hand, a glass of Veltliner would be to procure.”
To Jacob Burckhardt, January 5th, 1889.

Nietzsche does not write any more, and then Nietzsche dies August 25, 1900.

Please note to see some of the twisted history of Nietzsche’s publications, as of 1974, Walter
Kaufmann’s excellent discussions in the two sections “Appendix: Nietzsche’s ‘Suppressed’
Manuscripts” and (page 425-458) and “Bibliography” (pages 483-510) in Nietzsche, philosopher,
psychologist, antichrist / by Walter Kaufmann. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974.
The 4th edition.

Some essays and translations here are for understanding Nietzsche’s overall philosophical
thoughts.

38
 The eternal return of the same
Die ewige Wiederkunft des Gleichen (the eternal recurrence of the same).

In Ecco Homo: how one becomes what one is, Nietzsche says this important insight about his novel,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None:

“Die Grundconception des Werks, der Ewige-Wiederkunfts-Gedanke”.

"The basic conception of the work, the eternal-recurrence-thought".

On the other hand, another translation (as example) from German into English would be:
“The basic conception of the work, the thought eternal-return".

eKGWB/EH-ZA-1 — Ecce homo: Also sprach Zarathustra, Ein Buch für Alle und
Keinen . Written during 1883-1885.

Clearly, Nietzsche names what he considered as the core and central theme – the thought of
the eternal return (of the same) as of 1888, which is as of a few years after he wrote Thus Spoke
Zarathustra: A Book for All and None.

eKGWB/NF-1884, 27 [23] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Sommer–Herbst 1884.

“Zarathustra 2. - "the doctrine of eternal return" - at first crushing for the nobler, seemingly
the means to exterminate it - for the lesser, less sensitive natures remain? "One must suppress
this doctrine and kill Zarathustra."”.

Eternal return of the same is also called: das größte Schwergewicht (the greatest or heaviest
weight). Heaviest burden on human existence. Wake up in the morning to this idea.

Example. Break out of the different interpretations of the eternal return of the same by two
philosophers:

Karl Löwith’s Nietzsche’s Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same

contradiction between cosmology and anthropology
anthropological (psychological) and cosmological aspect.

Gilles Deleuze’s (1925-1995) study Nietzsche et la philosophie (1962):

the eternal recurrence between:
physical theory (speculation)
ethical doctrine (practice).

39
Cosmological doctrine. Physical time synthesis of past, present and future.
Finally, affirming and the overman. On the other hand, in today’s language perhaps the
“overclass” times 20.

Early note from 1881 reads:

eKGWB/NF-1881, 11 [141]. Spring-Autumn 1881.
“The new heavyweight: the eternal recurrence of the Same. Infinite importance of our
knowledge, of insanity, of our habits, of life for all that is coming. What do we do with the
remnant of our lives-we, who have spent the most part in the most essential ignorance?”

In The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”) 1887:

“The biggest heavyweight [Das grösste Schwergewicht]. - Like when, one day or at night, a
demon slipped into your loneliness and said to you, "This life, as you now live and live, you
will have to live again and again countless times; and there will be nothing new about it, but
every pain and every desire and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakable little and big of
your life must come back to you, and all in the same row and episode - and also this spider
and moonlight among the trees, as well as this moment and myself. The eternal hourglass of
existence is turned over again and again - and you with it, dust from the dust! "- Would you
not prostrate and grit your teeth and curse the demon that spoke like that? Or have you once
experienced a tremendous moment when you would answer him: "You are a God and I never
heard more divine [Göttlicheres]!" If that thought about you had violence, it would transform
you as you are, and perhaps crush it; the question in everything and everyone "do you want
this again and countless times?" would be as the biggest focus on your actions! Or how would
you be good to yourself and to life, to ask for nothing more than after this last eternal
confirmation and sealing?” Nietzsche’s The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”), section 341. Die
fröhliche Wissenschaft. (“la gaya scienza“). 1887. This might be interpreted as the ethical
interpretations of the eternal return of the same.

“The affirmation of flux and destruction, the decisive element in a Dionysian philosophy, the
yea-saying to contradiction and strife, the notion of Becoming, along with the radical rejection
of even the concept, “Being” — therein I am forced to recognize in any event that which is
closest to me of all that has previously been thought. The doctrine of the “Eternal
Recurrence,” that is, of the unconditional and endlessly repeating circulation of all things —
this doctrine of Zarathustra’s could possibly in the end also have been taught by Heraclitus. At
least the Stoics, who derived all their fundamental ideas from Heraclitus, possessed traces of
it.” Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908),
page 51. Translation by Thomas Wayne.
eKGWB/NF-1888, 24 [1]. October-November 1888.

40
“For what did the Hellene guarantee with these mysteries? The eternal life, the eternal return
of life, the future promised and consecrated in procreation, the triumphant jaws to life beyond
death and change, true life as the whole survival in the community, city, sexual union; the
sexual symbol as the most venerable symbol at all, the symbolic symbol of all the ancient
piety; the deepest gratitude for each individual in the act of procreation, pregnancy, birth.”

Nietzsche’s quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None III from section 2 of
“On the Vision and the Riddle” (Von Gesicht und Räthsel); this famous passages has been
analyzed again and again for Nietzsche’s theory and doctrine of “time” and the “eternal return
of the same”.

“Behold this gateway, dwarf ---I continued. ‘It has two faces. Two paths meet here; no one
has yet followed either to its end. This long lane stretches back for an eternity. And the long
lane out there, that is another eternity. They contradict each other, these paths; they offend
each other face to face; and it is here at this gateway that they come together. The name of the
gateway is inscribed above: 'Moment.' But whoever would follow one of them, on and on,
farther and farther-do you believe, dwarf, that these paths contradict each other eternally?"
'All that is straight lies," the dwarf murmured contemptuously. 'All truth is crooked; time itself
is a circle.- 'You spirit of gravity,' I said angrily, 'do not make things too easy for yourself Or I
shall let you crouch where you are crouching, lame foot; and it was I that carried you to this
height. 'Behold," I continued, 'this moment”. From this gateway, Moment, a long, eternal lane
leads backward: behind us lies an eternity. Must not whatever can walk have walked on this
lane before? Must not whatever can happen have happened, have been done, and have passed
by before? And if everything has been there before-what do you think, dwarf, of this moment?
Must not this gateway too have been there before? And are not all things knotted together so
firmly that this moment draws after it all that is to come? Therefore, itself too? For whatever
can walk-in this long lane out there too, it must walk one more. 'And this slow spider, which
crawls in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and I and you in the gateway, whispering
together, whispering of eternal things-must not all of us –have been there before? And return
and walk in that other lane, out there, before us, in this long dreadful lane-must we not
eternally return. “(Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 1883-1885, Walter Kaufmann translation. The Portable
Nietzsche, 1977, page 269-270).

41
And then note, the follow up some few paragraphs later:

'Behold," I continued, ‘this moment. From this gateway, Moment, a long, eternal lane leads
backward: behind us lies an eternity. Must not whatever can walk have walked on this lane
before? Must not whatever can happen have happened, have been done, and have passed by
before? And if everything has been there before-what do you think, dwarf, of this moment?
Must not this gateway too have been there before? And are not all things knotted together so
firmly that this moment draws after it all that is to come? Therefore, itself too? For whatever
can walk-in this long lane out there too, it must walk once more. “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
1883-1885, Walter Kaufmann translation. The Portable Nietzsche, 1977, page 270). One way of
analyzing Nietzsche’s thought of eternal recurrence is as a theory of time. There are many
other ways, of course.

The concept of time in the astronomical sense. Was there time before current universe (13.8
billion years ago)? Unknown. Nevertheless, we can imagine a time before. Will there be a
time when the universe reaches a state of almost no motion (entropy vs order)? Extreme
entropy. This is where there are no clusters of atoms and no motion hence almost absolute
zero temperature (Kelvin zero “0”, −273.15 °C). Great questions for astrophysics; but clearly
of no (zero) consequence for earth or humans. Human may survive another 1 or 2 million
years but that is mere dot on the current time scale of the universe.

So therefore, I take Nietzsche’s thought of the eternal return of the same as a theory (fact?)
about the human experience of the “moment” or as theory of human’s direct experience of
time. As long as we are human, we will experience time as the return of the moment. There
are some contra examples of humans using LSD-25 etc where humans have a different sense
and experience of time. We can imagine other ways of experiencing time, often in Star Trek
movies as one example. Of course, many other examples of the nature of time changing in
science fiction besides just Star Trek, for example, the movie Back to the future. Other examples,
Final Countdown/Philadelphia Experiment, Timecop, Terminator, Flight of the Navigator, Looper, and of
course the classic, The Time Machine.

Back to Nietzsche. Nietzsche uses the expression “eternal” (der Ewige); but there are clear
passages where Nietzsche says “no” to the concept of “eternal”. I think it clear that Nietzsche
is in fact unclear on the use of the term and concept of der Ewige “eternal”. Why is that?
What is the SAME that returns? Thought of as a doctrine of time, then the SAME is the
“moment” that returns. We can think of time as infinite but humans are finite, so our idea or
thought of infinite is on weak or very weak metaphysical and epistemological (ἐπιστήμη,
epistēmē, and λόγος, logos) ground. Does the SAME return eternally? Does the “moment”
keep coming forward in our experience? Yes, but maybe not eternally. With human
imagination, we can project (think forward) that our experience of the “moment” will
continue as long as human are experience consciousness of time. The “moment” will
continue to return.

42
eKGWB/Notebook June–July 1885. 38 [14].
In the summer 1885 Nietzsche wrote:
“What distinguishes us from all Platonic and Leibnitz thinking separates most thoroughly, that
is: we do not believe in eternal terms, eternal values, eternal
forms, eternal souls, and philosophy insofar as it is science (Wissenschaft) and
not law, we mean only the biggest expansion of the concept (Begriff) "History".

At the end of the section 2, Nietzsche comes up with this statement and the heaviest stress of
the eternal return of the same.

“Oh my brothers, I heard a laugh that was not laughed at by anybody, - - and now a thirst eats
on me, a longing that never stops.

My longing for this laughter eats at me: oh how can I still bear to live! And how can I endure
to die now! “.

The end of #2 section from “On the Vision and the Riddle” (Von Gesicht und Räthsel). Also
sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. 1884. Dritter Theil.

NF-1873, 30 [2] - Posthumous Notebook Autumn 1873 - Winter 1873-74.

“With the foundation of the supra-historical man (transhistorical man, überhistorischen
Menschen), who does not see salvation in the process, but in every man and every experience,
and again in every lived period, in every day, every hour, to know what life is meant to do: so
that for him the world is finished in every single moment and reaches its end.”

Notice the connection with the eternal return of the same as a doctrine of time and
temporality.

Again Heidegger’s project:

“Now, if we do not thoughtfully formulate our inquiry in such a way that it is capable of
grasping in a unified way the doctrines of the eternal return of the same and will to power, and
these two doctrines in their most intrinsic coherence as revaluation... then we will never grasp
Nietzsche's philosophy (Heidegger’s Nietzsche volume I, page 17).

Attempt to find the central core of Nietzsche’s thought in the connection between – the
eternal return of the same, the Will-to-Power === all as the revaluation of all values.

eKGWB/NF-1886, 5 [71] – Notebook Summer 1886 - Autumn 1887.

“A certain mental fatigue, brought on by the long struggle of philosophical opinions to
hopeless skepticism towards philosophers, also marks the by no means lower rank of those
nihilists. Think of the situation in which Buddha appeared. The doctrine of the eternal return
would have learned prerequisites (as the teacher Buddha had such as the concept of causality,
etc.).”
43
Note an example, of Heidegger’s methodology of re-working. Same as with Nietzsche’s
doctrines.

Heidegger wrote in 1939,

“Aristotle's acceptance of Antiphon's doctrine nevertheless constitutes the sharpest rejection
of it. The most drastic way to reject a proposition is not to dismiss it brusquely as disproven
and merely brush it aside, but on the contrary to take it over and work it into an essential and
grounded connection with one's own argument…” GA 9, English, Pathmarks, p. 224.

Bibliography
Löwith Karl. Nietzsche’s Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, translation by J. Harvey
Lomax. (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1997.

Magnus, Bernd. Nietzsche’s Existential Imperative. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1978).

Stambaugh, Joan. Nietzsche’s Thought of Eternal Return. (Baltimore: John Hopkins University
Press, 1972).

Heidegger, Martin. Nietzsche II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Edited and Translated by
David F. Krell, New York, Harper & Row, 1984.

44
 Will to Power
“The entire psychology has so far stuck to moral prejudices and fears: it has not ventured into
depths. To grasp the same as the morphology and developmental doctrine of the will to
power, as I grasp it - no one has yet touched on this in his own thoughts: if it is permitted,
what has been written so far is a symptom of what has so far been concealed to be recognize.”
Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. Section 23.

Wille zur Macht

Which expression in writing should we use?

Here some examples that have been used before:
will to power
Will to Power
Will-to-Power
for the German expression of Nietzsche’s is: Wille zur Macht?

Nietzsche has a tendency to over the determinations of the concept of the Will-to-Power as
having to do with motives, with the experience of will, and overall interpretation of
everything. To put it a much different light – Will-to-Power as the force within beings.
However, there are other ways that Nietzsche used the expression Will-to-Power. He was
working his way around the concept or doctrine -- we might even say “theory” of the Will-to-
Power. L. Williams says THE Will to Power is “striving for superiority”. When you see the
expression Will-to-Power, then some many ideas should come to mind. One way of looking
at this is try to find a way to include all of the ideas into some central idea. Given the
historical analysis of the Will-to-Power by so many different philosophers, I think it is likely to
be a troubled project. Remember this is not just a simple philology project (not philosophy
project) – this is major riddle of one of Nietzsche’s basic and core “doctrine”. It is a struggle
as it was for Nietzsche – this was his philosophical thinking powers – at the stretching point.
Remember he is not giving some clear newspaper report for his readers. Work in progress.
Perhaps Will to Power is related to the concept of the Latin entelechia, from Ancient Greek
ἐντελέχεια (entelékheia) (Aristotle, Leibniz, and Hegel in this line).

The first question about some of these quotes from the Nietzsche’s published writing: are
these statements examples of Nietzsche doing metaphysics? In his using the unpublished
writings of Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)’s analysis of the Will to Power leads him
to think that Nietzsche’s statements on the Will to Power were metaphysical. Heidegger bold
statement and claim, “Nietzsche as the last metaphysician”.

45
In one of Nietzsche’s early writing, Dawn - Thoughts on moral prejudice (Morgenröte – Gedanken über
die moralischen Vorurteile). (Morgenröte); he uses the expressions:
“lust for power” (Lust an der Macht, Machtgelüst) “feeling of power” (Machtgefühl and
Gefühl der Macht). Power to overcome or just become overwhelming.

In this example, I have used capital letters for Will to Power or even Will-to-Power to give on
the sense that these statements are about capitalized nouns.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None “On Self-Overcoming”.
“This is the will of your will. It is to be smooth and subject to the spirit, as its mirror and
antithesis. This is your whole will, your wisest, as a will to power; and even if you speak of good
and evil, and of the valuations.

Not the river is your danger and the end of your good and evil, your wisest; but rather the will
itself, the will to power, the inexhaustible witnessing will of life. But in order that you may
understand my word of good and evil, I will tell you my word of life, and the manner of all
living things.

"Whatever I am able to do, and how I love it, too-soon I must be an adversary to him and my
love: so will my will.” And you too, the discerning, are only a path and footprint of my will:
truly, my will to power also walks on the feet of your will to the truth! "Of course he did not
meet the truth, who shot the word after her from the" will to existence ": this will - there is
not!

"Only where there is life, there is also will: but not will to life, but - so I teach you --- will to
power!” Much is valued more highly by the living than life itself; but from the guessing itself-
the will to power!

Where I found life, I found the will to power; and still in the will of the minister, I found the
will to be Master (Lord? German: Herr). That the will of the fittest serve the weaker, and his
will, which is about to be even louder, is persuaded.

"Much is valued more highly by the living than life itself; but from the treasure itself-the will to
power!" Thus life taught me once: and from this, I am loosening you, your wisest, nor the
riddle of your heart. Verily, I say unto you, good and evil, which would be immortal - that is
not so.” [Za-II-Ueberwindung — Also sprach Zarathustra II: Von der Selbst-Ueberwindung.
Erste Veröff. 31/12/1883.

46
This example ends with the expression that will to power is determined and designated as the
intelligible character; and then he uses the expression “and nothing else”. Perhaps Nietzsche
was just a poor metaphysician and could not strongly get in the flow of making strong
metaphysical claims for the will to power. Some examples of doing metaphysics: the world is
will to power and nothing else; the world is eternally will to power and nothing else. Martin
Heidegger (1889-1976) case against Nietzsche as metaphysician is still actually weak. On the
other hand, Heidegger’s interpretation is thought provoking. Since the contra: my case being
Nietzsche’s is not a metaphysician and that means Heidegger is closer to Nietzsche as there
are both anti-metaphysical philosopher. Indeed, Heidegger has two parts to his philosophy
and his “doctrine”. The first is overcoming or leaving aside metaphysics in general.
Heidegger does not want to be considered (by philosophers) as doing anything that even
smells of the scent of metaphysics. Here Nietzsche is in fact his helper in this project. The
second part, Nietzsche would not follow; and that is Heidegger calling for a new beginning
(Anfang) based on the meaning or later the truth of the Being of beings.

Note the concepts of “leibhafte Wille zur Macht” or physical (corporeal) will to power.
Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. Section 259.
“Even that body within which, as previously assumed, individuals treat themselves as equal-it
happens in every healthy aristocracy-must itself, if it be a living and not a dying body, must do
all that against another's body the individual in him will abstain from each other: he will have
to be the physical will to power, he will grow, to reach out, to pull himself, to gain overweight,
- not out of any morality or immorality, but rather, because he lives, and because life is the will
to power.” Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. Number #259. [sondern weil
er lebt, und weil Leben eben Wille zur Macht ist.]. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of
the future. Number 36.

Note this the first word in German is Gesetzt which in English is “suppose” and this whole
section starts not as statement; but rather as a question. A question mark for thinking. You
must read the whole passage as a Hypothetical question.

[Gesetzt, dass nichts Anderes als real „gegeben“ ist als unsre Welt der Begierden und
Leidenschaften, dass wir zu keiner anderen „Realität“ hinab oder hinauf können als gerade zur
Realität unsrer Triebe — denn Denken ist nur ein Verhalten dieser Triebe zu einander —: ist
es nicht erlaubt, den Versuch zu machen und die Frage zu fragen, ob dies Gegeben nicht
ausreicht, um aus Seines-Gleichen auch die sogenannte mechanistische (oder „materielle“)
Welt zu verstehen?]. Jenseits von Gut und Böse. Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft. 1886.

‘Suppose that nothing other than real is "given" to our world of desires and passions, that we
cannot go down or up to any other "reality" than just the reality of our drives - for thinking is
only a behavior of these drives to each other -: is it not permissible to make the experiment
and to ask the question whether this given is not sufficient to understand from its equals also
the so-called mechanistic (or "material") world?”

47
The next part of this section is Nietzsche’s analysis of the “will” which leads to the end
“doctrine” or “claim” or “metaphysical proposition”; namely, the world is will to power!

Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. Number 36.
“The question is, ultimately, whether we really recognize the will as effective, whether we
believe in the causality of the will: if we do this - and, in fact, the belief in it is our belief in
causality itself, will-hypothesis as the only one. “Will" can, of course, only act on "will" -- and
not on "substances" (not on "nerves", for example -): enough, one must dare to hypothesize,
if not everywhere where "effects" are recognized will --and whether all mechanical events,
inasmuch as a force is active in them, is also will power, will-effect. Finally, let us succeed in
explaining our entire triad as the formation and branching of a basic form of the will ----
namely, the will to power, it is my proposition; that all the organic functions could be
attributed to this will to power, and that in it the solution of the problem of procreation and
nourishment - a problem - would be the right to unambiguously determine all the effective
forces: will to power. The world viewed from the inside, the world determined and
designated for its "intelligible character" - it would be "will to power" and nothing else. –“
eKGWB/JGB-36 — Jenseits von Gut und Böse: § 36. Erste Veröff. 4 August 1886.
Last sentence is German is:
[36. Die Welt von innen gesehen, die Welt auf ihren „intelligiblen Charakter“ hin bestimmt
und bezeichnet — sie wäre eben „Wille zur Macht“ und nichts ausserdem. —].

I read the whole section as a thought experiment that starts with the single word: suppose
(Gesetzt). There are many other readings and interpretation of this section. Re-read and re-
think.

Above passage from Nietzsche published writings – organic functions as Will to Power. This
passage is a strong counter example to most interpretations of the Will to Power.

In the following passage the will to power as spontaneous, attacking, encroaching, re-
exposing, and re-directing (spontanen, angreifenden, übergreifenden, neu-auslegenden, neu-
richtenden); this certainly does not appear to be like a metaphysical process that is eternal. In
fact, contrary, this is Nietzsche working on the determinations of this concept.

eKGWB/GM -II-12 – Toward the genealogy of morality: § II - 12. First publication 16 November
1887.
“But all purposes, all utility, are only indications of that that a will to power has become
something less powerful, and has, on its own account, the meaning of a function; and the
whole history of a "thing," an organ, a custom, can thus be a continuous chain of signs of ever
new interpretations and corrections, the causes of which do not need to be related among
themselves, but are merely successive in succession and detach.

48
But the essence of life is thereby misunderstood, its will to power; this is the overriding priority
which the spontaneous, attacking, encroaching, re-exposing, re-directing and shaping forces
have the effect of which the "adaptation" follows; thus the organism itself denies the
domineering role of the highest functionaries, in which the will to live (Lebenswille) appears
active and formative.”

Will to power == will of life !

This is clear statement for Nietzsche and in his printed and publications as well in 1887.
German “zur” meanings “to” and the “des” meaning “of”.

eKGWB/FW-349 - The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”): § 349. First publication 24 June 1887.
“The struggle for existence is only one exception, a temporary restriction of life's will; the
great and small struggle is everywhere concerned with excess, growth and expansion, power,
according (gemäss) to the will to power, which is same (eben) the will of life.”

Again, hardly any kind of a metaphysical statement or metaphysical doctrine here.

eKGWB/FW-349 — Die fröhliche Wissenschaft: § 349. Erste Veröff. 24 June1887.

[Der Kampf um’s Dasein ist nur eine Ausnahme, eine zeitweilige Restriktion des
Lebenswillens; der grosse und kleine Kampf dreht sich allenthalben um’s Uebergewicht, um
Wachsthum und Ausbreitung, um Macht, gemäss dem Willen zur Macht, der eben der Wille
des Lebens ist].

As one of Nietzsche’s main theme and core doctrine, you might think he would write about it
a great deal. However, the following numbers are used to indicate that even though there is a
huge media frenzy about the Will to Power in Nietzsche; but there is not a lot of references in
his published works. The term "will to power" (Wille zur Macht) first used in 1876. In the Thus
Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (total 6 times). In addition, only 9 references in
Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. There are five references in On the
Genealogy of Morals, and once in the fifth book of The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”). Three times
in the Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, once in Ecco Homo: how one becomes
what one is; and finally three times in The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity. [See “Will to Power in
Nietzsche's Published Works and the Nachlass”. By Linda L. Williams. Journal of the History of
Ideas, Vol. 57, No. 3 (July. 1996), pp. 447-463. Here Linda Williams has slightly different
numbers and does not include later publications. Nevertheless, she makes the excellent point
on the difference between the published and unpublished – namely, one should read both.
Linda Williams does excellent work showing how Nietzsche developed the concept of Will to
Power overtime. Williams write, “This was an idea that evolved over time. This paper
examines both the published and his unpublished writings (the Nachlass) to gain a better
understanding of how this important phrase develop.” (Page 447).

49
eKGWB/BVN-1886, 741 - Letter to Bernhard and Elisabeth Förster: 02/09/1886.
“For the next 4 years, the preparation of a four-volume Hauptwerk is announced: The title is
already scary [zum Fürchten-Machen, or ‘fear’]: "The will to power. Attempt to revalue all
values”

“eKGWB/FN – 1888, 14 [79]

“A quantum of power is designated by the effect it exercises and resists. It lacks the adiaphoria:
which in itself would be conceivable. It is essentially a will to rape and fight back against rape.
Not self-preservation: every atom works out into the whole being, - it is thought away, if one
thinks away this radiation of power wills. That is why I call it a quantum "Will to Power": this
expresses the character that cannot be thought away from the mechanical order, only without
thinking of it.” Translator’s note: adiaphoria (plural, ἀδιάφορα).

Remember this is a note. Indeed, some might say, this is “only a note”.

If we think back to Heidegger’s claim that Nietzsche’s Will to Power is a metaphysical claim –
at least this one quote does make it sound like metaphysics – but perhaps Nietzsche was doing
some kind of natural physics. As is often the case, this seems to mix up the metaphors and
leaves lots of room between the lines and even the word of Nietzsche’s expression, because he
is not doing natural physics or metaphysics; he is rather working out his thoughts on papers.
A bit of riddle for interpretation.

Nietzsche wrote and published this about the nature of physics, “Now it is beginning to dawn
on maybe five or six brains that physics too is only an interpretation and arrangement of the
world (according to ourselves! if I may say so) and not an explanation of the world.” “On the
prejudices of philosophers”, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. (Section 14,
page 15).

Remember this is using the expression and the actual word is: “physics”. What Nietzsche
means in this context about “physics” is open to interpretation. Note written in the year 1886.
What did “physics” mean for Nietzsche at this time?

50
 Spinoza
Below in a letter is Nietzsche’s own view of his inter-connectedness with Baruch Spinoza
(1632-1677). This is a very brief postcard (Nietzsche wrote many lengthy letters) is an
amazing summary of how Nietzsche saw some similarities between himself and Spinoza. A
quick summary, and yet, this passage shows how Nietzsche connected with a completely
different religious thinker of the past. Generally speaking, and thinking, Nietzsche would
appear to be exact opposite, but this makes out their similarities and calls them out. Nietzsche
saw them clearly and he did this summary. During the year of 1887, Nietzsche reads Kuno
Fischer’s (1824-1907) Spinoza-Biographie (1865). Moreover, and more importantly he is reading
Spinoza’s Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione and his Ethica. Nietzsche reported used Sämmtliche
Werke, Volume 2. By Benedictus de Spinoza.
Friedrich Nietzsche to Franz Overbeck in Sils-Maria dated 30 July 1881.
“I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor, and what a precursor! I hardly
knew Spinoza: that I should have turned to him just now, was inspired by “instinct.” Not only
is his over tendency like mine—namely to make all knowledge the most powerful affect—but
in five main points of his doctrine I recognize myself; this most unusual and loneliest thinker
is closest to me precisely in these matters: he denies the freedom of the will, teleology, the
moral world-order, the unegoistic, and evil. Even though the divergences are admittedly
tremendous, they are due more to the difference in time, culture, and science. ln summa: my
lonesomeness, which, as on very high mountains, often made it hard for me to breathe and
made my blood rush out, is now at least a twosomeness. Strange. Incidentally, I am not at all
as well as I had hope. Exceptional weather here too. Eternal change of atmosphere
conditions-that will yet drive me out of Europe. I must have clear skies for months, else I get
nowhere. Already six severe attacks of two or three days each. With affectionate love, your
friend.” [Portable Nietzsche, translation Walter Kaufman, 1954, page. 92.

51
“135. To Franz Overbeck in Basel (postcard) Sils-Maria, July 30, 1881.

I am quite amazed, quite delighted! I have a predecessor and what a! I almost did not know
Spinoza: that now I was asking for him was an "act of instinct". Not only that his total
tendency is equal to mine - to make knowledge the most powerful affect - in five main points
of his teaching I find myself again, this most abnormal and lonely thinker is closest to me in
these things: he denies free-will; the purposes -; the moral world order -; the unegoistic -; the
evil -; even if the differences are enormous, they are more in the difference between time,
culture, and science. All in all, my loneliness, which, as on very high mountains, often caused
me to breathe and let the blood flow out, is at least now a togetherness. - Whimsical!
Incidentally, my health is not at all my hopes. Exceptional weather here too! Eternal change of
atmospheric conditions! - that still drives me out of Europe! I have to have clean skies for
months, otherwise I will not get away. Already 6 severe, two to three-day seizures!! - In warm
love
Your friend.”
Postcard and new English translation by Daniel Fidel Ferrer. This is one example of Walter
Kaufman translations. Here you can compare the two translations with the German text
[“135. An Franz Overbeck in Basel (Postkarte) <Sils-Maria, 30. Juli 1881>. Partial.
Nicht nur, daß seine Gesamttendenz gleich der meinen ist — die Erkenntniß zum mächtigsten
Affekt zu machen — in fünf Hauptpunkten seiner Lehre finde ich mich wieder, dieser
abnormste und einsamste Denker ist mir gerade in diesen Dingen am nächsten: er leugnet die
Willensfreiheit —; die Zwecke —; die sittliche Weltordnung —; das Unegoistische —; das
Böse —; wenn freilich auch die Verschiedenheiten ungeheuer sind, so liegen diese mehr in
dem Unterschiede der Zeit, der Cultur, der Wissenschaft. In summa: meine Einsamkeit, die
mir, wie auf ganz hohen Bergen, oft, oft Athemnoth machte und das Blut hervorströmen ließ,
ist wenigstens jetzt eine Zweisamkeit. — Wunderlich!
Euer Freund.”
eKGWB/BVN-1881, 135.
Nietzsche’s has many attacking remarks about Spinoza, here is one example.
“Or even that Hocus-pocus of mathematical form, with which Spinoza at last interpreted his
philosophy - "the love of his wisdom", the word right and cheap - armored and masked in
brass, in order to intimidate from the outset the courage of the attacker, the one on this
insuperable maiden and Pallas Athena would dare to cast her glance: - how much self-timidity
and vulnerability betrays this masquerade of a reclusive patient!”
Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. (Section 5).

52
Here is Nietzsche’s note (see above) from the Lenzer Heide Notes about Spinoza:

“As one understands that here a contrast is desired to pantheism: for "everything perfect,
divine, eternal" also compels to a belief in the "eternal return" [Note: here it is ewige
Wiederkunft]. Question: is impossible for all things with morality these pantheistic Yes-
position? Basically only the moral God is overcome. Does it make sense to a God beyond
"Good” and evil "to think? Would a pantheism in this sense possible? Let's get off the idea
purpose of the processes, and we affirm the process anyway? - That would be the case if
something would reach the same within that process at any moment - and always the same
Spinoza gained such affirmative position as far as each moment has a logical necessity: and he
triumphed with his logical reason instincts about such a world constitution. “

Concept of meaninglessness
Nietzsche wrote, “This is the most extreme form of nihilism: the nothing (the "meaningless")
eternal.” [Das ist die extremste Form des Nihilismus: das Nichts (das “Sinnlose”) ewig!”.
eKGWB/NF-1886, 5 [71] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Sommer 1886 — Herbst 1887.
Meaninglessness (Sinnlosigkeit). Abstract nouns with the use of the suffix “-ness” and in
German it is “-keit”.

Heidegger wrote,
“Nietzsche’s thought of the eternal recurrence of the same expresses the essence of the will to
power, and in this basic thought the beingness of beings consummates its history. The
consummation of metaphysics through Nietzsche is the grounding of the last age of
modernity: we name it the age of complete meaninglessness. This name thereby has a unique
metaphysical and also transitional nominative power.” GA 96. Ponderings XII [93-94], et page
74. GA 96. Überlegungen XII–XV (Schwarze Hefte 1939–1941), #34. Page 22. [Die Vollendung
der Metaphysik durch Nietzsche ist die Begründung des letzten Zeitalters der Neuzeit: wir
nennen es das Zeitalter der vollendeten Sinnlosigkeit].

“Consummate meaninglessness: Being's abandonment.”

Heidegger, Additional Materials for Kozvov. Out of the History of Beyng (1939-40), ET, page188.

Meaninglessness (Sinnlosigkeit) in some of Nietzsche’s notebooks.

eKGWB/NF-1885, 39 [15]. August-September 1885.

53
“But the meaninglessness of all happenings! The moral interpretation has become obsolete at the
same time as the religious interpretation: they certainly do not know this, the superficial
ones! Instinctively, the more unforgivable they are, the teeth are fixed by the moral
appraisals.”

eKGWB/NF-1885, 40 [2]. August-September 1885.

“(Preface about the impending “meaninglessness ".) Problem of pessimism.)
Logic. Physics. Moral. Art. Politics.”

eKGWB/NF-1886, 5 [71]. After summer 1886 - autumn 1887

“And so the belief in the absolute immorality of nature, the purpose [die Zweck]
and meaninglessness, is the psychologically necessary affection when the faith in God and an
essentially moral order can no longer be held. Nihilism now appears, not because the
displeasure of existence is greater than before, but because one has become suspicious of a
"sense" in evil, indeed in existence.” (See above translation).

eKGWB/NF-1886, 7 [54]. End of 1886 - spring 1887.

“Uselessness of mechanistic theory-gives the impression of meaninglessness. The whole idealism
of mankind is about to turn into nihilism-in the belief in absolute value-meaning
meaninglessness... The destruction of the ideals, the new barrenness, the new arts to endure it,
we amphibians.”

eKGWB /NF-1887, 8 [4]. After summer 1887.

“Their effect is: distrust of life at all (inasmuch as its tendencies are perceived as
"immoral") meaninglessness, inasmuch as the supreme values are felt as opposed to the supreme
instincts - the antisense, degeneracy and self-destruction of the "higher natures" the conflict
becomes conscious.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 10 [192]. Fall 1887.

“The concept of worthlessness, meaninglessness: the extent to which moral values are behind all
other high values. - The result: the moral value judgments are condemnations, denials,
morality is the departure from the will to existence ... Problem: what is the morality?”

eKGWB/NF-1888, 13 [2]. Beginning 1888 - spring 1888.

“On the history of nihilism (eudemonism as a form of the sense of meaninglessness of the
whole). What do moralists and moral systems mean? Teaching of the
domains. Egoism. Altruism. "Herd". The will to power in history (domination over the natural
forces, the economic life cosmological perspective.”

54
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)’s notes the epoch or the whole age (written in 1939-1941) as
“complete meaninglessness”:
“Nietzsche’s thought of the eternal recurrence of the same expresses the essence of the will to
power, and in this basic thought the beingness of beings consummates its history. The
consummation of metaphysics through Nietzsche is the grounding of the last age of
modernity: we name it the age of complete meaninglessness. This name thereby has a unique
metaphysical and also transitional nominative power. Meaninglessness is here understood
according to the concept of meaning worked out in Being and Time, viz., as the projective
domain of projection and especially of the projection of being onto its truth, whereby truth is
grasped as the clearing of self-concealing. Meaninglessness is truthlessness, i.e., the
truthlessness of Being.” GA 96. Ponderings XII [93–94]. English translation page 21. GA 96.
Überlegungen XII–XV (Schwarze Hefte 1939–1941), page 74.

55
 Nihilism and Nietzsche Thought
We must start with this quote from Nietzsche’s notebook:

eKGWB/NF-1885, 1 [17]. Fall Autumn 1885 - Spring 1886.

“- how did we get to unlearned in fifty years! The whole romanticism, with its faith in the
"people", is rejected! No Homeric poetry as folk poetry! No deification of the great powers of
Nature! No conclusion from language kinship to racial kinship! No "intellectual perception" of
the supersenous! No truth veiled in religion!”

Heidegger wrote, “Every metaphysics is a “systems of value-estimations (Wertschätzungen)”.

(GA 50, Nietzsche, page 22).

Nietzsche from the year 1873 planned a book with the title: ‘‘The philosopher as the physician
of culture.’’.

"self-overcoming of nihilism" in his notes (KSA 12: 9[164]

Stages or the outline of Nihilism

Deleuze: Four stages

1). Negative nihilism (religion and ascetic ideals, supersensory world)

2). Reactive nihilism (God is dead and is only a shadow).
3). Passive nihilism (Last man, and will to nothingness).
4). Transformative (advent of the overman) forces are active, will to power as affirmative.
[Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche 1962, 1965. Nietzsche and philosophy].

Ernst Jünger (1895-1998), wrote this

“Nihilism is not considered an end, but rather as a phase in a comprehensive spiritual process,
a phase which culture in its historical course, but also the individual in his personal existence,
can leave behind and be done with, or perhaps even overgrow, like a scab.”
Page. 67. Across the Line 1951, Über die Linie.
Correspondence, 1949–1975 / Martin Heidegger and Ernst Jünger.

56
Analysis. Five stages. Based on Heidegger.
There are many questions about these stages or shapes of Nihlilism. Do individuals and
societies (nations, cultures) go through these same stages or can one actually jump stages? Did
Nietzsche himself personally go through these as stages in his life? Doubtful. Oswald
Spengler, Ernst Jünger, Edmund Husserl (our age Crisis), and Martin Heidegger all thought
Western Civilization was in in decline and was in some of these stages of nihilism. Of course,
their actual positions and stances on Nihilism are more complex than this generalization. We
must have life-affirming values or at least that is the next starting point. Nietzsche wrote,
“The entire idealism of mankind hitherto is on the point of changing suddenly into nihilism--
into the belief in absolute valuelessness (Wertlosigkeit), i.e., meaninglessness (Sinnlosigkeit).
(Will to Power, #617)”. Active Nihilism affirms the goallessness and affirms life without goals
or values. Incomplete Nihilism is when revelations of values are incomplete or just when old
values are re-inverted, which is the flip-flop of core values. The idea of complete Nihilism no
longer needs the concept of values at all. Nihilism as the will to the continuing return of
nothingness-ing, valuelessness-ing, and goallessness-ing. Values started with Plato and the
ideal and/or the idea (ἰδέα) of the Form of the Good (τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέαν, agathon); and idea of
values is now at the historically end of western philosophy with Nietzsche and his revaluation
of all values.

General outline:

Imperfect Nihilism
Extreme Nihilism
Active Nihilism
Ecstatic Nihilism
Classical Nihilism

Nihilism the shape and stages

Pessimism
1). Weakness (resignation)
2). Strength (mastery)

Nihilism starts as pessimism

Greek term: adiaphora [from the Greek ἀδιάφορα (indifference)]. Namely, indifference to life.

57
Heidegger says about Nietzsche and the death of God:
“"God is dead" means: the supersensory world has no effective power.” There is also a link to
the Plato’s cave allegory – the sun metaphor is the eternal supersensory world. ["the idea of
the good" (ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα)]. Consider the direction of Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) on
this issue in an important unpublished essay, What Real Progress has Metaphysics Made in Germany
Since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff?, written in 1793 where Kant defines metaphysics as "the
science of advancing by reason from knowledge of the sensible (Sinnliche) to the knowledge
of the supersensuous. (Progress, et. p. 53). German Übersinnlichen is the supersensuous
(beyond the world of appearances).

Stages of Nihilism and Revaluation of all values

General outline:

Imperfect Nihilism
Extreme Nihilism
Active Nihilism
Ecstatic Nihilism
Classical Nihilism

Revaluation of all values (Umwerthung aller Werthe; other German terms revaluation:
Umwerthung, Umwerthen, Umzuwerthen).

Hierarchies system of values (rankings).

The revaluation of all values – is the cure for the disease called Nihilism in general.
Who can be a revaluator? How to understand the stages of nihilism and Nietzsche’s thinking
about the revaluation of all values (Umwerthung aller Werthe)? Value positing of all values.

Standard Christian Values. Ranked order. Hierarchies. The tablet of values.

First stage nihilism. Ranked order. Hierarchies. The tablet of values.

General outline:

Imperfect Nihilism
Extreme Nihilism
Active Nihilism
Ecstatic Nihilism
Classical Nihilism

58
 Highest Good God. Supersensory. Eternal
Heaven Supersensory

Immortal soul Supersensory

Mortal sins Supersensory

Hell Supersensory
Evil (lowest) Devil. Supersensory

Nihilism the highest values are devalued (God is dead). There is no longer any power of the
supersensory realm. Highest good – or the highest value, namely, God as summum ens qua
summum bonum. Highest value or values as such are denied (death of God). Kant’s
supersensory realm (Plato the realm of the eternal Idea forms). Supersensory realm loses its
power. Supersensuous (Übersinnlichen). At the end of the first stage, then there is still a
Supersensory (eternal) world but it has no effective power at this level. Value positing.

Second stage nihilism.

General outline:

Imperfect Nihilism
Extreme Nihilism
Active Nihilism
Ecstatic Nihilism
Classical Nihilism

Ranked order. Hierarchies. Active Nihilism (incomplete Nihilism). New human goals; and
thus no more Christian concepts or Christian goals and no more Christian values as well. S

Second Level: Active Nihilism (incomplete Nihilism),

putting new values (ideals, communism) in the place of old values into the supersensory realm.
Values are still eternal. Values in the same old place as eternal values. For example, progress is
our eternal goal. Belongs to the Last Man in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Tablet of values.

Highest Good Progress of humanity.

Supersensory. Eternal
Communism. Supersensory

Socialism. Supersensory

59
 Moral imperative (like Kant) Supersensory

Hope Supersensory
The Enemy Supersensory

Third stage nihilism.

General outline:

Imperfect Nihilism
Extreme Nihilism
Active Nihilism
Ecstatic Nihilism
Classical Nihilism

Hierarchies. Ranked order by the principal (systematized) of the Will to Power. Complete
Nihilism (consummated or classical or ecstatic Nihilism). Value positing.

The Supersensory world is gone. Nothing is eternal. Finite. Nietzsche’s life affirming goals is
the highest goal and the highest value in general. Ranked in hierarchies. Third Level:
cut out the supersensory realm. No eternal ideals or realm. Still the value positing is the
process.

A new and complete way of:

re valuation of all values
re-ordering of all values
transvaluation of all values
re-ranking of values;
but all under what principle?

“A revaluation of all values, this question mark so black, so tremendous that it casts shadows
on them who it is - a fate of task forces at any moment, to walk in the sun, shake a heavy, too
hard who have become serious by itself.” Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer
(Preface). Tablet of values. Value estimating (Wertschätzungen) and value positing.

Life affirming Progress of humanity

Last man to overman
Growth Meaning of the earth

60
 Great healthy living Superabundance of life
(WP 14, 1887).
(überreichsten Lebens).
Eagles (elite ethics). Against the Noble values
herd and sheep values, ethics.

Individual
No to Christian values

Creation of all of the new values (neue Werthe, neuer Werthtafeln, neue Werthschätzungen).
Base on the meaning of the earth and life-affirming values (opposite of Christian values as
Nietzsche understand them). Will-to-Power becomes totally affirming. The process of value
positing.

According to Nietzsche we are not far beyond the Renaissance man, in fact, we only “must”
think that we are far beyond. Nevertheless, for Nietzsche we are not progressing, we might be
declining.

“We modern people, very delicate, very fragile and a hundred considerations giving and
taking, we are one, in fact, this gentle humanity that we represent, this unanimity reached in
the conservation, in helpfulness (Hülfsbereitschaft), mutual trust is a positive step forward,
that we may be far beyond the people of the Renaissance. But just think every time [era,
period] they think it must.” Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, section
“Wandering of untimely ones”, #37.

Forth stage nihilism.

General outline:

Imperfect Nihilism
Extreme Nihilism
Active Nihilism
Ecstatic Nihilism
Classical Nihilism

61
Deny values and meanings in life. Extreme Nihilism (active Nihilism?). Note: no longer any
hierarchy. No rungs on the ladder. No highest or lower values. No goals (goalessness-ing). No
tablet of values. No real or actual value positing process. Goalessness is sometime translated
from German as aimlessness. Nietzsche first used this term in 1875, and last time in a note
from the Fall of 1887 – for twelve years. For Nietzsche the word ‘goallessness’ (Ziellosigkeit)
is a form and basic belief of Nihilist (Will to Power, #25). Heidegger wrote in the Contributions,
“Nihilism in Nietzsche’s sense means that all goals are gone”.

No meaning No value
Meaningless Meaninglessnessing (verb,
process)
No goals goalessness-ing
No values and worth.
No ontological status of values in
the world
No way of re-ordering or even
creating values

Fourth level. Final Nihilism becomes a divine way of thinking (1887, 9 [41]).

General outline:

Imperfect Nihilism
Extreme Nihilism
Active Nihilism
Ecstatic Nihilism
Classical Nihilism

Escstatic becomes the Classiscal Nihilism.

Deny values and meanings in life.
No eternal truths.
No ontological status of values in the world
No way of re-ordering or even creating values.
No values and no meanings (hence, meaninglessness).
No ontological status for “meanings”.
No hierarchies or ranking of values or goals for humanity.
No “importance” as such.
No tablet of values.
No purpose for human existence.
No value positing.

62
Nietzsche often speaks of tables of values and ranks of values; hierarchies are all based on
some kind of value ranking (higher – lower). The former metaphysical distinction has totally
collapsed: the truer world beyond or behind the sensible world; also called the supersensory.
Some time it is apparent versus the real world. This metaphysical distinction (eternal vs finite)
no longer means anything, no longer is it used. Started most clearly with Plato’s cave in the
past western Greek philosophy. It is the “true core” doctrine of western philosophy and
western metaphysics. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave from Plato’s Republic (written around 380
B.C). Eternal “Forms” exist in the intelligible realm (noēton topon) or supersensory world.
Whitehead said all of western philosophy is just simply a series of footnotes to Plato. The
Cave is the central and core starting point for western philosophy as onto-theo-logical
metaphysics. No more of an odoriferous mess in the lower levels.

Is Nihilism and the revaluation of all values (or trans-valuation of all values) a project for an
individual person or western civilization? In understanding Nietzsche, I think the overall
concept started as process for the individual person and grew over time into a critique of
western civilization (Heidegger took it further and determined Nihilism as the root of the
historical western philosophy and the core of metaphysics as onto-theo-logical from Plato
until it reach its highest point with G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831); and then according Heidegger
metaphysic was final completed with the last western metaphysician, namely, Nietzsche).

The follow quote can be used as the claim that revaluation of all values is done by person as
the revaluator. The creation of an entire new and unique value system for the individual.
Maybe the ‘new philosopher’ in Nietzsche’s thinking. The process of value positing.

eKGWB/NF-1885, 2 [131] Autumn 1885 - Autumn 1886.

“Toward the third book.
The Will to Power.
How should the people be who make this revaluation in themselves.
Ranking as an order of power: war and danger are the precondition for a rank to hold its
conditions. The grandiose role model: man in nature, the weakest cleverest being making
himself master, the stupid forces subjugating themselves.”

[Zum dritten Buche.

Der Wille zur Macht.
Wie die Menschen beschaffen sein müßten, welche diese Umwerthung an sich vornehmen.
Die Rangordnung als Machtordnung: Krieg und Gefahr die Voraussetzung, daß ein Rang
seine Bedingungen festhält. Das grandiose Vorbild: der Mensch in der Natur, das Schwächste
Klügste Wesen sich zum Herrn machend, die dümmeren Gewalten sich unterjochend.].
In the Genealogy of Morals: A polemic in the Third Essay (III, #27)

63
We find these linking remarks. Here is where Nietzsche announced to the entire world (in a
published book) that he working on project entitled, The Will to Power.

“27
- Enough! Enough! Let us leave these curiosities and complexities of the most up-to-date
spirit in which laughter is as much a matter of ridicule: precisely our problem can dispute that
problem, the problem of the importance of the ascetic ideal, what has the same to do with
yesterday and today! These things should be touched upon more thoroughly and harder by me
in another context (under the title "On the History of European Nihilism," for which I refer
to a work that I am preparing: The Will to Power, an attempt to revalue all values). What
only matters to me here is this: the ascetic ideal, even in the most spiritual sphere, has in the
meantime only one kind of real enemy and injurer: these are the comedians of this ideal, for
they awake mistrust.]

[27
— Genug! Genug! Lassen wir diese Curiositäten und Complexitäten des modernsten Geistes,
an denen ebensoviel zum Lachen als zum Verdriessen ist: gerade unser Problem kann deren
entrathen, das Problem von der Bedeutung des asketischen Ideals, — was hat dasselbe mit
Gestern und Heute zu thun! Jene Dinge sollen von mir in einem andren Zusammenhange
gründlicher und härter angefasst werden (unter dem Titel „Zur Geschichte des europäischen
Nihilismus “; ich verweise dafür auf ein Werk, das ich vorbereite: Der Wille zur Macht,
Versuch einer Umwerthung aller Werthe). Worauf es mir allein ankommt hier hingewiesen zu
haben, ist dies: das asketische Ideal hat auch in der geistigsten Sphäre einstweilen immer nur
noch Eine Art von wirklichen Feinden und Schädigern: das sind die Komödianten dieses
Ideals, — denn sie wecken Misstrauen.]. “Zur Genealogie der Moral. Eine Streitschrift. III, #27.”

We can just have value feeling (Werthgefühl). In Nietzsche’s writing the terms, “Will to
Power” is used in 132 places. First time in 1876. Note the very first appearance of the phrase
“revaluation of all values” (Umwerthung aller Werthe) is in this note by Nietzsche from an
1884. Title of a projected and planned book from 1884. Nietzsche published 15+ books but
he wrote down many planned books (projected) and those often with outlined table of
contents as well. This is a book plan and is the first use of the terms together: der
Umwerthung aller Werthe (revaluation of all values).

eKGWB/NF-1884, 26 [259]. [26 = W I 2. Summer – Autumn, 1884]

Philosophy of the eternal return.
An attempt to revaluation all values.

eKGWB/NF-1884, 26 [259]. [26 = W I 2. Sommer–Herbst, 1884]

Philosophie der ewigen Wiederkunft.
Ein Versuch der Umwerthung aller Werthe.

64
A few years later in a letter, Nietzsche writes:
“eKGWB/BVN-1886, 741 - Letter to Bernhard and Elisabeth Förster: 02/09/1886.
“Attempt to revaluation all values. For that I need everything, health, loneliness, good humor,
perhaps a woman.”

eKGWB/BVN-1886, 741 — Brief an Bernhard und Elisabeth Förster: 02/09/1886.

[Versuch einer Umwerthung aller Werthe“. Dafür habe ich Alles nöthig, Gesundheit,
Einsamkeit, gute Laune, vielleicht eine Frau.].

At this point, the revaluation of all values it is not for western civilization but it is in this
specific case – it is for Nietzsche himself. Note the word: attempt (Versuch).

As Nietzsche describes the activity of the ‘new’ philosophers of the future in Beyond Good and
Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future.

211
“I insist that one should finally stop confusing the philosophical workers and the scientific
people with the philosophers - that here, with rigor, one does not give too much to each one
of them, nor to others, but not too much to them. It may be necessary for the education of
the real philosopher that he himself once stood at all these stages, upon which his servants,
the scientific workers of philosophy, must stand, must stand still; he himself may have been
critics and skeptics and dogmatists and historians and, moreover, poets and collectors and
travelers and riddlers and moralists and seers and "free spirits" and almost everything to go
through the circle of human values and values and with many eyes and conscience, from the
height to every distance, from the depth to every height, from the corner into every distance,
to be able to look. But all these are only preconditions of his task: this task itself wants
something else, - it requires that he create value.”
Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (1886, section 211).

I think the following quote shows the revaluation of all values as 1) mankind and 2), that it has
become flesh with Nietzsche himself. Combining of the civilization and a specific person,
namely, Nietzsche with regard to the process of the revaluation of all values. The re-ranking of
all values and always for Nietzsche, that this means attack or curse against Christian values.
One of Nietzsche’s last book has the title of, Der Antichrist. Fluch auf das Christenthum.
(The Antichrist. Curse on Christianity). The 30th of September 1888.

Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908), section
“Why I Am a Destiny”
“Revaluation of all values: this is my formula for an act of supreme coming-to-oneself on the
part of mankind which in me has become flesh and genius.”

65
The next quote, shows the overall impact of the revaluation of all values, it is a tremendous
event. Echoing Nietzsche’s God is dead pronouncement in The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”)
(section 108 and the Mad Man section 125, 1887 section 343). This is the total impact
statement of how important is the revaluation of all values for Nietzsche:

Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer Preface. “A revaluation of all values, this
question mark so black, so tremendous that it casts shadows on them who it is - a fate of task
forces at any moment, to walk in the sun, shake a heavy, too hard who have become serious
by itself.”

Heidegger says:
“It does not bestow life. Metaphysics, which for Nietzsche is Western philosophy understood
as Platonism, is at an end. Nietzsche understands his own philosophy as the
countermovement against metaphysics, i.e., for him, against Platonism.” Often the Beaten Track,
page 162.

Nietzsche again shows us power of thought:

“Let us not underestimate this: we ourselves, we free spirits, are already a “revaluation of all
values,” an incarnate declaration of war and victory on all the old concepts of “true” and
“untrue.” The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity, page 111. Translation by Thomas Wayne.

Arche as principle to unite the tablet of values – Will to Power.

Great health. Life affirming No Christian values. No against the denial of lifers. Meaning of
the earth. Superabundance of life (WP 14, 1887), (überreichsten Lebens). See next note from
Nietzsche’s notebooks.

eKGWB/NF-1887, 9 [39], 1887.

“(29) …the values and their change are in proportion to the power-growth of the value-taker
the measure of unbelief, and the "freedom of the spirit" as the expression of power
"Nihilism" as the ideal of the highest power of the spirit, the super abundant life (überreichsten
Lebens); partly destructively, partly ironically.”

Nietzsche is affirming human existence as high spirit. Life as life overflowing.

eKGWB/NF-1887, 9 [39] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Herbst 1887.

“[(29) die Werthe und deren Veränderung steht im Verhältniß zu dem Macht-
Wachsthum des Werthsetzenden das Maaß von Unglauben u<nd> von zugelassener „Freiheit
des Geistes“ als Ausdruck des Machtwachsthums „Nihilism“ als Ideal
der höchsten Mächtigkeit des Geistes, des überreichsten Lebens; theils zerstörerisch theils
ironisch].”

66
Someone would say the next and highest level; Fifth Level is simply Nietzsche’s Overman
(Übermensch). English translation: superman, overman, beyond-man, hyperhuman,
hyperhumanity, superhuman, etc.

“This man of the future will redeem us not just from the ideal held up till now, but also from
the things which will have to arise from it, from the great nausea, the will to nothingness, from
nihilism, that stroke of midday and of great decision which makes the will free again, which
gives earth its purpose and man his hope again, this Antichrist and anti-nihilist, this conqueror
of God and of nothingness – he must come one day “. (On the Genealogy of Morality (1887), second
essay, #24. Nietzsche Reader, page 424). [Dieser Mensch der Zukunft, der uns ebenso vom
bisherigen Ideal erlösen wird, als von dem, was aus ihm wachsen musste, vom grossen Ekel,
vom Willen zum Nichts, vom Nihilismus, dieser Glockenschlag des Mittags und der grossen
Entscheidung, der den Willen wieder frei macht, der der Erde ihr Ziel und dem Menschen
seine Hoffnung zurückgiebt, dieser Antichrist und Antinihilist, dieser Besieger Gottes und des
Nichts — er muss einst kommen…]. The word used in German is Antinihilist.

Note in this passage by Nietzsche the important point: “makes the will free again” (Willen
wieder frei macht). I think this wraps up a number of Nietzsche’s points and his doctrine.

1). Man of the future.

2). Against the great nausea.
3. Against the will to nothingness.
4). Against nihilism.
5). Give hope again.
6). Stroke of midday.
7). Give earth its purpose.
8). Again as the antichrist (against Christianity).
9). Again the Anti-nihilism doctrine.
10). Conqueror of God and nothingness.
Therefore, the man of the future “must come one day”.

Without any doubt, this man of the future is not Nietzsche’s Last Man; but rather the
Overman (Übermensch). English translation: superman, overman, beyond-man, hyperhuman,
hyperhumanity, superhuman, etc.

The überhistorischen Menschen, supra-historical man, transhistorical man, or over historical

man.

NF-1873,30 [2] - Posthumous fragments. Autumn 1873 - Winter 1873-74.

“With the foundation of the supra-historical man (überhistorischen Menschen), who does not
see salvation in the process, but in every man and every experience, and again in every lived
period, in every day, every hour, to know what life is meant to do: so that for him the World is
finished in every single moment and reaches its end.”
67
Notice the connection with the eternal return of the same as a doctrine of time and
temporality.

“Basically there are two negations implied in my term immoralist. First I deny the type of man
hitherto considered the highest, the good man, the benevolent man, the beneficent man;
secondly I deny a kind of morality which has gained currency and mastery as morality-in-itself
— décadence-morality, in cruder terms, Christian morality.” Ecce Homo How one becomes what one
is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908). English translation by Thomas Wayne,
page 92.

Conclusion
Nihilism as stages of the devaluation and then final no values or meaning. Without values can
there be any values to goals of humanity? Nihilism’s stages as the downward path to
meaninglessness – loss of eternal values and meaning; and then loss of values and meanings.
No ranking of values or goals for humanity. The finitude of humans as a starting point for
philosophy! Indeed, and then at last, finally we may say, Nietzsche’s core and force of mind:
“highest power of the spirit, the super abundant life (überreichsten Lebens)”. Life denying
values versus life affirming values. Therefore, the freedom from metaphysics and for
Nietzsche freedom from Christian and especially from the Christian denying morals (life
denying values versus life affirming values). In addition, the last step for Nietzsche, that
Christianity is holding the life denying values. That is how Nietzsche sees it for his time and
of course his epoch in western history.

Should we read Nagarjuna’s concept of Śūnyavāda (school of Madhyamaka) as Nihilism? In the

general, context Nagarjuna’s concept it more metaphysical statement about reality. Reality is
mere conceptual constructs (prajñaptimatra). Contra, Nietzsche is more about the notion of
“value-ranking”.

Self-overcoming of Nihilism
The German expression used by Nietzsche “Selbstüberwindung des Nihilismus”.
In this section, I am going to use the German and then the English translation in the next line.
So, this is a line by line translation from German into English of a number of these first notes.

68
First use by Nietzsche.

eKGWB/NF-1887,9[127] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Herbst 1887.

9[127]

“Die Heraufkunft des Nihilismus.

The advent of nihilism.

Die Logik des Nihilismus

The logic of nihilism

Die Selbstüberwindung des Nihilismus

The self-overcoming of nihilism.

Überwinder und Überwundene.

Conquerors and conquered.”

Second note also from 1887.

eKGWB/NF-1887,9[164] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Herbst 1887.

9[164]

“Der Wille zur Macht.

The will to power.

Versuch einer Umwerthung aller Werthe.

Attempt to revaluation all values.

Erstes Buch:
First book:
der Nihilismus
the Nihilism
als Schlußfolgerung der höchsten bisherigen Werthe.
as a conclusion of the highest values to date.

Zweites Buch:
Second book:
Kritik der höchsten bisherigen Werthe,
Criticism of the highest values so far,

69
 Einsicht in das, was durch sie Ja und Nein sagte.
Insight into what, through it ‘yes’ and ‘no’ said.

Drittes Buch:
Third book:
Die Selbstüberwindung des Nihilismus,
The self-overcoming of nihilism,
Versuch, Ja zu sagen zu Allem, was bisher verneint wurde.
Attempt to say yes to everything that has been denied so far.

Viertes Buch:
Fourth book:
Die Überwinder und die Überwundenen.
The conquerors and the conquered.

Eine Wahrsagung.
A divination.”

Translator note. Nietzsche as a Greek philologist might have been thinking of the Greek,
μαντικὴ τέχνη.

This next note is example of Nietzsche writing out an outline of his ideas and hence projected
books or section of books. Nietzsche did 100s of these outlines in his notebooks. Many of his
major themes are included. His most famous book that was outlined in many notes and even
mentioned in one of his published book (end of On the Genealogy of Morals) as his next major
work (Hauptwerk) was going to be titled: The Will to Power. The project was given up by
Nietzsche after five years of notes and book outlines. Remember these are notebooks
(Notizheft) from the year 1888. Nietzsche stopped writing entirely after January 6, 1889.

Returning. Please note that is next one is numbered 3, so it is right before his last notebook
entry with expression of self-overcoming of nihilism (number 4).
eKGWB/NF-1888,13[3] . — Nachgelassene Fragmente Anfang 1888 — Frühjahr 1888.
“I. The history of European nihilism. (Misunderstanding of pessimism.
what is missing?
Essential: the sense (Sinn) missing)
Decline of all other highest values.
The idealizing force has thrown itself on the reverse
I. The will to truth. Starting point: decline of the value of “truth.”
- The noble types so far. Decline of the sovereign type.
IV On the teaching of the eternal return. As a hammer.
- The history of the ranking
70
1 Physiology: the organic functions
2 Psychology of affects
II. What moralists and moral systems mean.
IV We future. The privilege of the fewest and the privilege of most
II Origin of the highest concepts of value (“metaphysics”)
"Herd"; “Good person” etc. rulers.
II The aesthetic values, origin, criticism.
IV Ranking of the values.”

eKGWB/NF-1888,13[4] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Anfang 1888 — Frühjahr 1888.

“A. From the advent of nihilism.
1. "Truth". From the value of truth. The belief in the truth. - Decline of the highest worth.
Summation of all that is done against him.
2. Decline of any kind of faith.
3. The decline of all noble types

B. From the necessity of nihilism.

4. Origin of the highest previous value.
5. What are moralists and moral systems.
6. For a critique of aesthetic values.

C. From the self-overcoming of nihilism.

7. The will to power: psychological considerations.
8. The will to power: physiological considerations.
9. The will to power: historical and sociological analysis

D. The conqueror and the conquered.

10. From the privilege of the few.
11. The hammer: doctrine of eternal recurrence.
12. Of the hierarchy of values.
Each book 150 pages.
Each chapter 50”

By now you can see many of the recurring themes and topics in Nietzsche.
The hierarchy of values, will to power, the doctrine of eternal recurrence, the history of
European nihilism, conquerors and the conquered, decline, hammer, and the attempt to
revaluation all values.

71
Chronological Nietzsche’s Thoughts on
Nihilism
“I have a finer nose for the signs of ascent and descent than any man has ever had, I am the
teacher par excellence of this — I know both, I am both.”
Ecce Homo, How one becomes what one is, translation by Thomas Wayne.

eKGWB/NF-1885, 35 [82]. May-July 1885.

“A pessimistic thought and doctrine of ecstatic nihilism may be indispensable to the
philosopher, as a mighty pressure and hammer, with which he breaks the degenerate and
dying races, and creates them out of the way for a new order of the to make a life-course or to
enter into the desires of the end.”

eKGWB/NF-1885, 2 [127]. Autumn 1885 - Autumn 1886.

“Nihilism stands in front of the door: where does this most eeriest (unheimlichste, sinister,
weirdest, spooky, uncanny) of all our guests come from? - [Der Nihilismus steht vor der Thür:
woher kommt uns dieser unheimlichste aller Gäste? —].

I. 1. Starting point: it is an error to point to "social emergency" or "physiological

degeneration" or even to corruption as the cause of nihilism. These still allow quite different
interpretations. Rather, in a very definite interpretation: nihilism lies in the Christian-moral. It
is the most honorable, most compassionate time. Noth [translator fill-in for translation],
spiritual, physical, intellectual necessity is by no means profitable, nihilism. The radical
rejection of value, meaning, desirability

2. The downfall of Christianity in its morality (which is indissoluble) -which is directed against
the Christian God (the meaning of truthfulness, highly developed by Christianity, is disgusted
with the fallacy and mendacity of all Christian world and history of "God is the truth" in the
fanatical belief "Everything is wrong." Buddhism of the...

3. Skepticism about morality is the decisive factor. The downfall of the moral interpretation of
the world, which has no longer a sanction after it has tried to escape to another world, ends in
nihilism. "Everything has no meaning" (the impracticability of a world exposition which has
been devoted to immense power distrust if not all world interpretations are wrong -) Buddhist
train, longing for nothingness. (The Indian Buddhism has not undergone any fundamental
morale development; therefore, in nihilism, it is only unconverted morality: existence as
punishment, existence as error combined, error as punishment-a moral value estimate). The
philosophical attempts to (Hegel, Pantheism). Overcoming the popular ideals: the way. The
Saint. The poet. Antagonism of "true" and "beautiful" and "good" - -

72
4. Against "senselessness" (Sinnlosigkeit, meaninglessness) on the one hand, against the moral
values on the other: to the extent that all science and philosophy have hitherto been subject to
moral judgments? and whether one does not get the enmity of science into the purchase? Or
anti-scientific? Criticism of Spinozism. The Christian value judgments everywhere in the
socialist and positivist systems backward. There is no criticism of Christian morality.

(5) The nihilistic consequences of contemporary science (in addition to its attempts to escape
into the beyond). Finally, a self-decomposition, a turn towards itself, an anti- scientific one
follows from its activity. Since Copernicus the human being has been rolling out of the center
into the X

6. The nihilistic consequences of the political and economic thinking, where all "principles"
belong at once to the acting: the breath of mediocrity, wretchedness, insincerity, etc.
Nationalism, anarchism, etc. Punishment. The state of liberation and man, the justifier,

7. The nihilistic consequences of history and of "practical historians", i. the romantic. The
position of art: absolute unoriginality of its position in the modern world. Your gloom.
Goethe's alleged Olympian (Olympier-thum).

8. The Art and the Preparation of Nihilism: Romanticism (conclusion of Wagner's Nibelungen
Ring).”

eKGWB/NF-1885, 2 [131]. 1885 - Autumn of 1886.

“The latter is nihilism. 1. The rising nihilism, both theoretically and practically. Faulty derivation
of the same. (Pessimism, its types: preludes of nihilism, though not necessary.)

The Signs. The European Nihilism. Its cause: the depreciation of the previous values. The
unclear word "pessimism": people who are bad and people who are too good - both are P
<essimists>).”

eKGWB/NF-1886, 5 [70]. Summer 1886 - autumn 1887.

“History of Greek philosophy. Nihilism: the loss of a total value (namely the moral) lack the
new interpretative forces. On the history of values. The will to power and its
metamorphoses.”

73
eKGWB/NF-1886, 7 [8]. End of 1886 - spring 1887.
“Signs of a decline in faith in morality. Nihilism, the Nothing is more dangerous than a
desirability of the essence of life. the nihilistic consequence (the belief in valuelessness) as a
result of the moral value of the egoistic is we disguised (even after the insight into the
impossibility of the Unegoist), the necessity is useless (even after insight into the impossibility
of a liberum arbitrium and an "intelligent freedom") we see that we have not reached the
sphere to which we have placed our valuables, so the other sphere in which we live has by no
means gained in value: in the contrary, we are tired because we have lost the main driving
force.”

eKGWB/NF-1886, 7 [54]. 1886 - Spring 1887.

“The whole idealism of mankind is about to turn into nihilism, to the belief in absolute value,
meaning meaninglessness. The destruction of the ideals, the new desolation, the new arts, to
endure it, we amphibians.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 9 [35]. Autumn 1887.

“He reaches his maximum of relative force as a violent force of destruction: as
active nihilism. Its opposite would be the weary nihilism that no longer attacks: his most famous
form of Buddhism as deferred Nihilism The Nihilism represents a pathological intermediate
state is (pathological is the tremendous generalization, the conclusion in no sense), be it that
the productive forces are not yet strong enough, whether the decadence has hesitated and has
not yet invented its means.”

eKGWB/NF-1887 9 [35]. [9 = W II 1. Herbst 1887]. Autumn 1887.

“(27)

1. The nihilism is a normal state. Nihilism: the goal is missing; it lacks the answer to the "Why?"
What does nihilism mean? - that the highest values diminish. It is ambiguous: Nihilism as a sign
of the increased power of the mind: as an active nihilism.

It is ambiguous: Nihilism as a sign of the increased power of the mind: as an active nihilism, it
can be a sign of strength: the power of the mind can grow to such an extent that its past goals
(beliefs, beliefs) are inadequate - a belief generally expresses the compulsion of conditions of
existence, a submission to the authority of conditions under which a being grows, grows, gains
power ... On the other hand, a sign of insufficient strength to productively become a goal, a
why?

B). Nihilism as a decline and decline in the power of mind: the passive nihilism
as a sign of weakness: the power of the mind can be tired, exhausted, so that the past aims and
values are inadequate and no longer find faith--
that the synthesis of values and goals (upon which every strong culture rests) dissolves, so that
the individual values war themselves: decomposition

74
that everything that refreshes, heals, calms, stuns, comes to the fore, under different disguises,
religiously, morally or politically or aesthetically, etc.

2. Prerequisite for this hypothesis

That there is no truth; that there is no absolute quality of things, no "thing-in-itself"
- this is itself a nihilism, and indeed the most extreme. He places the value of things precisely
in the fact that this value corresponds to no reality and corresponds, but only a symptom of
force on the side of the value-setting, a simplification for the purpose of life

B) Nihilism as a decline and decline of the power of mind: the passive nihilism as a sign of
weakness: the power of the mind can be tired, exhausted, so that the past aims and values are
inadequate and no longer find faith - that the synthesis of values and goals (upon which every
strong culture rests) dissolves, that the individual values are waring themselves:
decomposition, that everything that refreshes, heals, soothes, stuns, comes to the fore, under
different disguises, religiously, morally or politically or aesthetically, etc.

Presupposition of this hypothesis. That there is no truth; that there is no absolute quality of
things, no "thing-in-itself" -this is itself a nihilism, the most extreme. He places the value of
things precisely in the fact that this value corresponds to no reality and corresponds, but only
a symptom of force on the side of the value-setting, a simplification for the purpose of life.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 9 [41]. Autumn 1887.

“The most extreme form of nihilism would be that every faith, every true-keeping is necessarily
false, because there is no real world at all. Thus, a perspective semblance whose origin lies
within us (insofar as we must have a narrower, shortened, simplified world continually
necessary) -that it is the measure of the force, how much we can assume the appearance, the
necessity of the lie without reason to go.

To this extent, nihilism, as a denial of a true world, of being, could be a divine thought: - - -“

eKGWB/NF-1887, 9 [107]. Fall of 1887.

“(72) Development of pessimism towards nihilism. The unnaturalization of
values. Scholasticism of values. The values, solved, idealistic, instead of mastering and leading,
are condemned against doing.

The antitheses are due to a miserable age, because it is easier to grasp. The rejected world, in
the face of an artificially constructed, "true, valuable" finite: one discovers the material from
which the "true world" has been built; and includes that highest disappointment on the Conto
to of its reprehensibility (auf das Conto ihrer Verwerflichkeit). This is the nihilism since one has
left the judging value - and nothing else! Here the problem arises of strength and weakness: 1)
the weak are broken by it 2) the stronger are destroyed, which does not break 3) the strongest
overcome the directing values.”

75
eKGWB/NF-1887, 9 [123]. Fall 1887.
“Genesis of the nihilist.
That I have been a nihilist from the outset, I have only recently admitted: the energy, the
radicalism with which I was a nihilist, deceived me about this basic fact. If one comes to a goal,
it does not seem possible that "the aimlessness per se"(Ziellosigkeit, purposelessness) is our
articles of faith (Glaubensgrundsatz).”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 10 [22] Fall of 1887.

“it would under certain circumstances be the sign of a decisive and most important growth,
for the transition to new conditions of existence that the most extreme form of pessimism,
the actual nihilism, would come to the world. This I have realized.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 10 [42]. Fall of 1887.

“To what extent the perfect nihilism is the necessary consequence of the previous ideals. - the
incomplete nihilism, its forms: we live in the midst of it-the attempts to escape the nihilism
without converting these values: bring about the opposite, exacerbate the problem.

eKGWB/NF-1887, 10 [192]. Fall of 1887.

“Radical nihilism is the conviction of an absolute untenability of existence, when it is the
highest value which one acknowledges, the insight that we have not the least right to employ a
beyond or an in-itself of things, which is "divine", the physical morality.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 11 [108]. November 1887 - March 1888.

“A philosopher is recovering differently and differently: he recovers, for example,
in nihilism. The belief that there is no truth at all, the nihilist faith is a great limb for one who,
as a man of war, is incessantly struggling with ugly truths.”

eKGWB/NF-1887.11 [411]. November 1887 - March 1888.

“Because our past values themselves are those which draw their last conclusion in
him; because nihilism is the ultimate logic of our great values and ideals, because we must first
experience nihilism in order to understand what was the value of these "values." We have, at
some point, new values ... “

eKGWB/NF-1888, 13 [3]. Beginning 1888 - spring 1888.

“On the history of European nihilism. (Misunderstanding of pessimism, which is lacking,
essential: the meaning is wanting) the decline of all the other highest values. The idealizing
force has turned to the reverse.”

AC-6 - The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity. § 6. 20/11/1888.

“I think of life itself as the instinct for growth, for duration, for accumulation of strength, for
power: where the will to power is lacking, there is decline. My contention is that all the values of
mankind are lacking in this will — that values of decline, nihilistic values hold sway under the
holiest of names.”
76
AC-7 - The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity. § 7. 20/11/1888.
“Note: “the practice of nihilism” [die Praxis des Nihilismus].
Schopenhauer was right about this: through pity life is denied, it is made more worthy of denial —
pity is the practice of nihilism. To say it once more: this depressive and contagious instinct
thwarts those instincts which exist for the preserving and value-enhancing of life: both as a
multiplier of misery and as a conservator of all that is miserable it is a prime instrument for the
advancement of décadence — pity persuades to nothingness! ... One does not say “nothingness”:
one says instead the “hereafter”; or “God”; or “true life”; or nirvana, salvation, blessedness...
This innocent rhetoric from the domain of religio-moral idiosyncrasy immediately appears
much less innocent once one perceives which tendency has wrapped itself in a mantle of sublime
words here: the tendency which is hostile to life. (Nietzsche Reader, page 107).

The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”):

“Have we not exposed ourselves to the suspicion of an opposition – an opposition between
the world in which we were at home up to now with our reverences that perhaps made it
possible for us to endure life, and another world that consists of us – an inexorable, fundamental,
and deepest suspicion about ourselves that is more and more gaining worse and worse control
of us Europeans and that could easily confront coming generations with the terrifying
Either/Or: “Either abolish your reverences or –yourselves!” The latter would be nihilism; but
would not the former also be – nihilism? – This is our question mark.” The Gay Science (“la gaya
scienza”), Book V: We Fearless Ones (1887), section 346. Nietzsche Reader, page 204.

77
 Nietzsche on the Nihilist (Nihilisten)
eKGWB/NF-1880, 4 [108] — Fragment in Summer 1880.
“We honor those who broke the spell of custom in thought. But those who did it through
action vilify and put bad motives under them. This is unreasonable, at least one should push
the freethinker the same bad motives. - That in crime much courage and originality of spirit,
independence can be proved is concealed. The "tyrant" is often a free brave spirit, his nature
no worse than that of the timorous, often better because more honest. The general question
now is whether the Russian nihilists are more immoral than the Russian officials in favor of
the nihilists. Countless customs have fallen victim to the attacks of freethinkers and
freethinkers: our present individual way of thinking is the result of all crimes against morality.
Anyone who attacked the existing was considered a "bad person"; the story is only about these
bad people!”

eNF-1884, 26 [335] - Fragments Summer-Autumn 1884.

“Can one be interested in this German Reich? Where is the new thought? Is it just a new
power combination? The worse, if it does not know what it wants. Peace and giving is not a
policy that I respect. To rule and to bring the highest thought to victory - the only thing that
could interest me in Germany. What does it matter to me that Hohenzollern are there or are
not there? - England's little ghost is the big danger now on earth. I see more inclination
towards greatness in the feelings of the Russian nihilists than in the English utilitarian. An
inter-growing of the German and the Slavic races, - we also need the most skillful money man,
the Jews, necessarily, to have the rule on earth.”

eBVN-1887, 820 - Letter to Franz Overbeck : 24/03/1887.

“In all the radical parties (socialists, nihilists, anti-Semites, Christian Orthodox, Wagnerians) I
enjoy a whimsical and almost mysterious reputation. The extreme purity of the atmosphere in
which I put myself seduces”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 9 [60] - Fragments in autumn 1887.

“The same species of man, one step poorer, no longer in possession of the power to interpret,
the creation of fictions, makes the nihilist. A nihilist is the man who judges of the world as it is,
it should not be, and judges of the world as it should be, it does not exist. According to this,
being (acting, suffering, wanting, feeling) has no meaning: the pathos of "vain" is the nihilist
pathos - at the same time as pathos an inconsequence of the nihilist who is unable to put his
will into things, the will and the powerless, at least, puts in one sense: that is, the belief that
there is already a will in it which should work in the things and want to.”

78
eKGWB/NF-1887, 9 [123] - Fragments of autumn 1887.
“Genesis of the nihilist.
I been fundamentally nihilist have been, I have admitted to myself only recently: the energy of
Radicalism with which I, as a nihilist went forward, deceived me about this basic fact. If one
goes to a goal, it seems impossible that "aimlessness in itself" "(purposelessness is our
principle of faith.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 10 [43] - Fragments of autumn 1887.

“10 [43] (173) The perfect Nihilist - the eye of the Nihilist, who idealizes ugliness, infidelity
practices against his memories (- it causes them to fall, defoliate, it does not protect them from
pale discolorations, as they do weakness over the past and the past pours, and what he does
not do against himself he does not do against the whole past of the man, he lets him fall.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 11 [97] - Fragments November 1887 - March 1888.

“11 [97] (349.) The philosophical nihilist is convinced that everything that happens is
meaningless and vain; and there should be no meaningless and free being. But from where
this: It should not? But where do you get that "sense" from? This
measure? The nihilist basically means that the view of such a desolate uselessness seems
unsatisfactory, desolate, desperate for a philosopher; such an insight contradicts our finer
sensibility as philosophers.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 11 [123] - Fragments November 1887 - March 1888.

“And not only the belief that everything is worthy to perish: one lends one's hand, one sets to
ruin ... That is, if one wishes, illogical: but the nihilist does not believe in the necessity, logically
It is the state of strong spirits and will: and it is not possible for such men to stand by the no
of "judgment": - the no of action comes from its nature.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 11 [280] - Fragments November 1887 - March 1888.

“Under other circumstances, for example, in the middle of today's Europe, the same kind of
man would live, teach and speak as a nihilist: and even in this case one would hear from his
party that its master was for justice and love between man and man died - not for the sake of
his guilt but for the sake of our guilt (- of the now ruling classes: insofar as governing itself is
considered a guilt by anarchists.).”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 11 [341] - Fragments November 1887 - March 1888.

“I am a nihilist, but I love beauty - je suis nihiliste, mais j'aime la beauté. Do not the nihilists
love them? What they do not love are idols: I, I love idols and you are mine!”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 11 [373] - Fragments November 1887 - March 1888.

“The two great nihilistic movements: a) Buddhism b) Christianity: the latter has only now
reached approximately cultured states (Cultur-Zustände) in which it can fulfill its original
purpose - a level to which it belongs ... in which it can be shown in ...”

79
eKGWB/NF-1887, 11 [379] - Fragments November 1887 - March 1888.
“11 [379]. The nihilist. The Gospel: the message that there is an access to happiness for the
lowly and the poor-that one has nothing to do but break away from the institution, the
tradition, the tutelage of the upper classes: in this respect, the advent of Christianity is nothing
more than the typical socialist doctrine.”

eKGWB/NF-1887, 11 [411] - Fragments November 1887 - March 1888.

“On the other hand, whoever takes the floor here has done nothing but remember: as a
philosopher and hermit out of instinct, who found his advantage in the offside, in the outside,
in the patience, in the delay, in the reticence; as a dare-and-tempter-mind that has once strayed
into every labyrinth of the future; as a divination bird spirit who looks back when he tells
what's coming; as the first perfect nihilist of Europe, but who has already lived nihilism in itself
to the end, - who has him behind him, among himself, beside himself ... 4. For one does not
dread the meaning of the title, with this future Gospel wants to be named.”

eKGWB/NF-1888, 12 [1] - Fragments Early 1888.

“(362) Foreword: The Advent of Nihilism (363) Subject, Object (364) "Hunger" in the
Protoplasm (365) The Nonsense in God's Concept: We Deny "God" in God (366) The
Practical Nihilist (367) We - disappointed with the "ideal" (368) ridicule: "be easy!”

eKGWB/NF-1888, 14 [29] - Fragments spring 1888.

“In other cases the one who has gone astray seeks the reason for this not in his "guilt" (as the
Christian), but in society: the socialist, the anarchist, the nihilist, feeling their existence as
something to be guilty of, is thus still the closest relative of the Christian, who also believes to
endure the ill-feeling and misrule better when he has found someone whom he can blame for
it.”

eKGWB/NF-1888, 15 [16] - Fragments spring 1888.

“Wagner and the dramatic form of Wagner's relation to France - "European" Wagner's
relation to Christianity and culture: - the romantic and the nihilist - typical transformation, with
the normal eventual return to Christianity.”

eKGWB/BVN-1888, 1009 - Letter AN Georg Brandes: 27/03/1888.

“I almost admire anyone who does not lose the belief in himself under a clouded sky, not to
mention the belief in "humanity", in "marriage", in "property", in the "state" ... in Petersburg
nihilist: here I believe, as a plant believes, to the sun. The sun of Nice - that is really no
prejudice. We have had them at the expense of all the rest of Europe. God makes them shine
with their own cynicism about us idlers, "philosophers" and Greeks more beautiful than over
the much more dignified military-heroic "Fatherland". Lastly, you too, with the instincts of the
Northerner, have chosen the strongest stimulus that it can to endure life in the north, the war,
the aggressive affect, the Viking raid.”

80
eKGWB/NF-1888, 17 [7] - Fragments May-June 1888.
“It is not at all about the best or the worst world: no or yes, that's the question. The nihilistic
instinct says no; its mildest assertion is that not-Being is better than Being (daß Nicht-sein
besser ist als Sein), that the will to nothing has more value than the will to live; its strictest,
that if nothingness is the supreme desirability, this life, in contrast to it, is absolutely worthless
- becomes objectionable ...

Inspired by such valuations, a thinker will involuntarily seek to justify a nihilistic tendency to
all the things to which he instinctively attaches value. This is the great false coinage of
Schopenhauer, who was put to many things with deep interest: but the spirit of nihilism
forbade him to reckon this to the will to live: and so we see a series of fine and valiant
attempts, art, wisdom to bring beauty in nature, religion, morality, genius, because of its
apparent hostility to life, as a desire to bring to nothing in honor.”

eKGWB/NF-1888, 17 [9] - Fragments May-June 1888.

“Christian, Buddhist, nihilist. The impoverished body. The inartistic states: idiosyncrasy (-
those of the weak, middle). The fear of the senses, of power, of intoxication (instinct of the
inferiors of life).”

eKGWB/BVN-1888, 1054 - Letter AN Carl Fuchs: 30/06/1888.

“Thanks for the most flattering etymology! The Poles say it means "nihilist” ...
[Dank für die allerschmeichelhafteste Etymologie! Die Polen sagen, es bedeute „Nihilist “…].

eKGWB/NF-1888, 18 [8] - Fragments July-August 1888.

“By abolishing our "mindset", we would not at all be "better" - we would not exist anymore,
we would have abolished ourselves ... you are just a nihilist ... "

This is a draft outline of a book tile and table of contents. Note one of many that Nietzsche
outlined. He had many books plans in his notebooks. By one account, he had 15 outlines of
the book entitled: Will to Power. A project he drops late in his life.

eKGWB/AC-11 - The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity § 11. 20/11/1888.

“An action to which the instinct of life compels has in its pleasure its proof of being a right
action: and that nihilist with Christian-dogmatic entrails understood pleasure as objection ...
What destroys faster than without inner necessity, without a deep one personal choice, work
without desire, think, feel?”

81
eKGWB/AC-58 - The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity § 58. 20/11/1888.
“His instinct in it was so sure that he put the ideas with which those Chandala religions were
fascinated into the mouth of the "savior" of his invention with relentless violence to the truth,
and not only in the mouth - that he made something out of him what a Mithras priest could
understand ... This was his moment in Damascus: he understood that he needed the
immortality-faith to devalue "the world", that the term "hell" over Rome still becomes master,
that one kills life with the "beyond" ... Nihilist and Christ: that rhymes, that does not just
rhyme ...”

eKGWB/AC-20 - The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity § 20. 20/11/1888.

“With my condemnation (Verurtheilung) of Christianity, I would have done no injustice to a
related religion, which even outweighs the number of confessor (professor of a religion,
Bekenner), against Buddhism. Both belong together as nihilistic religions - they are décadence
religions - both are separated from each other in the strangest way. That one can compare
them now, the critic of Christianity is deeply grateful to the Indian scholars. - Buddhism is a
hundred times more realistic than Christianity, - it has the legacy of objective and cool
problem-making in the body, it comes after a hundreds of years of philosophical movement,
the term "God" is already done when it comes. Buddhism is the only actually positivistic religion
that history shows us, even in its epistemology (a strict phenomenalism), it no longer says
"fight against sin" but, giving the right entirely to reality, "fight against that suffering" (Kampf
gegen das Leiden). It has - this is what distinguishes it deeply from Christianity - the self-
deception of moral concepts already behind it, - it is speaking, in my language, beyond good
and evil.”

Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer § 34. 24/11/1888.

“One can think and write only sitting (G. Flaubert). - I've got you, nihilist! The sitting on
derriere (Sitzfleisch) is just the sin against the Holy Spirit. Only the thoughts have value.”

Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, § 32. 24/11/1888.

“But the philosopher despises the wishing man (wünschenden Menschen), even the
"desirable" man - and all desires, all the ideals of man. If a philosopher could be a nihilist, it
would be because he finds nothingness behind all human ideals. Or not even the nothing - just
the unworthy, the absurd, the sick, the fig, the tired, all kind of dregs (Hefen) in the finished
drinking cup of his life... The human being who is as venerable as reality, how is it that he
deserves no respect, if he wishes?”

82
Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer (#32, section Wandering of
Untimely Ones). “The immoralist speaks. - A philosopher is nothing more repugnant to my
taste than the man, if he wants... he sees man only in his actions, he looks lost this bravest,
most cunning, even in labyrinthine hardiest animal’s desperate situation, as it appears
admirable man! He still speaks to him... But the philosopher despises the desiring people, even
the "desirable" people - and indeed all desirables, all ideals of man. When a philosopher could
be a nihilist, he would be there, because he finds the nothingness behind all ideals of man. Or
not even the nothing – but rather, only the unworthy, the absurd, the sick, the fig, the tired, all
kind of dregs (Hefen) in the finished drinking cup of his life...[Oder noch nicht einmal das
Nichts, — sondern nur das Nichtswürdige, das Absurde, das Kranke, das Feige, das Müde,
alle Art Hefen aus dem ausgetrunkenen Becher seines Lebens…]. eKGWB/GD-Streifzuege-
32 — Götzen-Dämmerung: Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemässen, § 32.

eKGWB/NF-1888, 23 [3] – Notebook October 1888.

“The demoralization morale is the typical decay morale par excellence. Here there is a
possibility that mankind itself is not in decadence, but that its teachers! And indeed, that is my
proposition: the teachers, the leaders of humanity, were décadents: hence the revaluation of all
values into the nihilistic. "otherworldly"...).”

Who is Nietzsche’s nihilist?

Re-think.

83
 Nietzsche Contra Metaphysics
"Like all Western thought since Plato, Nietzsche's thinking is
metaphysics"
(Heidegger’s Nietzsche, Volume III, page 187).

Nietzsche in a number of places writes again concept of Knowledge. What is metaphysics

without knowledge, without epistemology? Definition of Epistemology, Greek ἐπιστήμη,
epistēmē, meaning 'knowledge', and λόγος, logos.

Here is an example of Nietzsche rejection of knowledge:

eKGWB/NF-1885, 2[154]. Will to Power, #555. KSA 12, 2[154], page 141-142.
(36)

“Against the scientific prejudice. The greatest fabulous thing is that of knowledge. One wants
to know how things are in themselves: but behold, there are no things in themselves! But even
if there were an in-itself, an unconditioned, it could not be recognized! Something
unconditional cannot be recognized: otherwise it would not necessarily be! However, to know
is always to put oneself in the condition - -; such a "recognizer" wants that what he wants to
know does not concern him; and that the same thing is of no concern to anyone at all: in the
first place a contradiction is given, in the will to know and the desire that it should not
concern him (why then know!) and secondly, because something that concerns no one, not at
all is, so also cannot be recognized. - To know means to "condition oneself into something":
to feel conditioned by something and between us - so it is under all circumstances a
determination to make conscious of conditions (not a fathoming of beings, things, "in-
itself").”

Heidegger wrote (1947):

“The essence of the homeland, however, is also mentioned with the intention of thinking the
homelessness of contemporary man from the essence of Being's history. Nietzsche was the
last to experience this homelessness. From within metaphysics he was unable to find any other
way out than a reversal of metaphysics. But that is the height of futility.” “Letter on
Humanism” in Basic Writings, page 241.

Heidegger wrote (1964):

“Throughout the entire history of philosophy, Plato's thinking remains decisive in its sundry
forms. Metaphysics is Platonism. Nietzsche characterizes his philosophy as reversed
Platonism. With the reversal of metaphysics that was already accomplished by Karl Marx, the
uttermost possibility of philosophy is attained. It has entered into its end.”. “The End of
Philosophy and the Task of Thinking”. Basic Writing, page 433.
84
Martin Heidegger in his 1930s lecture calls Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) the last western
metaphysician without the analysis of Nietzsche’s own work on leaving metaphysics aside.
Nietzsche did not overcome metaphysics because he never “had” it in the first place. No one
ever thought that Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a metaphysician or that he set out to overcome
metaphysics. Karl Marx overcame G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831)’s metaphysical system as
idealism (turn Hegel on his head, the so-called ‘inversion’, Umkehrung); but that is always in
terms of Hegelian idealism versus Marxian historical materialism. Short version: idealism
versus materialism.

For Heidegger (1889-1976) of the 1936-1937 Nietzsche lectures, his Nietzsche is the Janus
faced figure of Nietzsche being the last metaphysician of the western philosophical tradition;
and on the other hand, pointing the way out of metaphysics to Heidegger’s new beginning
(Anfang) of thought, in fact, Heidegger would not use philosophy or metaphysics to describe
his new beginning. Heidegger later sees himself as the starting point for the new beginning
and then puts Nietzsche back into Heidegger’s overall meta-history of Being as being just
another metaphysician. According to Heidegger, metaphysics never gets the ontological
difference and never asks about the meaning (Sinn) of Being or the truth of Being. Note: of
course, metaphysics is still trapped in the eternal world.

Did Nietzsche overcome metaphysics or was he still stuck in the Platonic metaphysics? This
paper will analyze Nietzsche’s view of traditional metaphysics and then his rejection of
metaphysics. The second part, will then exam Nietzsche claims about the will to power, amor
fati, eternal return of the same, overman, and revaluation of all values to determine if
Nietzsche has in fact reached beyond metaphyscs. Was Nietzsche the last metaphysician in the
western tradition?

Nietzsche wrote early on:

“I call myself the last philosopher because I am the last person. Nobody talks to me as myself,
and my voice comes to me like that of a dying person.”
(eKGWB / NF-1872,19 [131] – Notebook summer 1872 - early 1873)

Is it true that in fact Nietzsche is doing some kind of metaphysics?

What does the word “metaphysics“ stand for in the western philosophical tradition?

Historical context of metaphysics.

Standard definition: Metaphysics (τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά (ta meta ta fysika;) referred to Aristotle’s
texts after his physica (Φυσικῆς ἀκροάσεως" or "phusikes akroaseos"); and he defined the texts
subject matter as the Being of beings (being as being, to on he on). Definitions: a being,
Greek=on, Greek=entia, Latin=ens, German=Seiende. Sanksrit links: Sat as Being, sattva
pure, truthful; and satya as "truth". Example from the Sanskrit saying: sat-chit-ananda [being-
consciousness-bliss].
85
Non-object and the words are: Being, Greek=einai, Latin=esse, German=Sein. Metaphysics in
general – is the thinking about ontology or the Being of beings and the tradition coming from
Plato Sophist; and then especially: Aristotle and Aristotelianism through Saint Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1274), William of Moerbeke (1215-1286), Francisco Suárez (1548-1617), Christian
Wolff (1679-1754), G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), Friedrich Trendelenburg (1802 – 1872), and
Franz Brentano’s (1838-1917) work On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle (1862). Edmund
Husserl (1859-1938), Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950, his 1942 New Ways of Ontology),
Heidegger, and of course the French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980, in his 1943
Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology. This to mention only one line of the
western ontological tradition.

Heidegger using a word taken from Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) (Critique of Pure Reason, in
the section entitled: Kritik aller Theologie aus spekulativen Prinzipen der Vernunft, (AK
3:420), Heidegger critically calls all of western metaphysic: onto-theo-logy (Ontotheologie,
ontology, theology, and logic). For logic, think G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831)’s Science of Logic –
not Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) or W.V. Quine (1908-2000).

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) in his unpublished essay, “What Real Progress has Metaphysics Made
in Germany Since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff?” [Published by Rink in 1804] defines metaphysics
in general as “the science of advancing by reason from knowledge of the sensible (Sinnliche)
to the knowledge of the supersensuous. (Progress, et. p. 53). The object of the Kantian problem
is the transition from the sensible (sensory) to supersensuous. There are three basic
components to the metaphysical supersensuous, namely, God, freedom, and immortality
(Progress, p. 294-295). The epistemological question: but what can we know of these objects?

In the second preface (1787) to the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) Kant said “Now after
speculative reason has been denied all advance in this field of the supersensible, what still
remains for us is to try whether there are not data in reason's practical data for determining
that transcendent rational concept of the unconditioned, in such a way as to reach beyond the
boundaries of all possible experience, in accordance with the wishes of metaphysics,
cognitions a priori that are possible, but only from a practical standpoint. ” (CPR, Bxxi).

G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) of course tried to overcome the impression from the Critique of Pure
Reason that Kant had indeed finished off the traditional metaphysics up to Kant’s time
(Christian Wolff, 1679-1754; Alexander Baumgartner (1714-1762); Georg Friedrich Meier
(1718-1777), when Hegel talked negatively about the destruction of metaphysics “Untergang
der Metaphysik” (Science of Logic, first preface, 1812) by Kant. For Hegel, the new metaphysics
was a science of logic and Kant’s rejection of the exotic theory of metaphysics that did not
allow for new the Hegelian speculative thinking. Kant’s unspeculative thought was seen by
Hegel as supporting the wrong-headed principle of the “renounce the speculative thinking”
(Science of Logic, first preface 1812). Hegel’s attack against Kant (died 1804) was clear by 1812.

86
In fact, Nietzsche wrote, “The consequences of Kant's doctrine. End of metaphysics as a
science.” (Summer 1872- early 1873, 19 [51]. Therefore, even Nietzsche saw this as a general
Kantian movement against metaphysics. In reading Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804), it seems
like that, Kant’s strongest anti-metaphysical stance was in the first edition of the Critique of Pure
Reason (1781). After reading the reviews and his other writings, again it seems like Kant
wanted to bring the faith of God back in his doctrines. Kant wrote in the Preface to the
second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787), “Thus, I had to deny knowledge in order to
make room for faith.” (Ich mußte also das Wissen aufheben, um zum Glauben Platz zu
bekommen) (AK 3:19 Kritik der reinen Vernunft).

Nietzsche as the last metaphysician?

Heidegger wrote, “With his thought on the will to power Nietzsche anticipates the
metaphysical ground of the completion of the modern age. Metaphysical thinking completes
itself in thought of the will to power. Nietzsche, the thinker of the thought of the will to
power, is the last metaphysician of the West.” (Nietzsche as Metaphysician, published 1961).

Does Nietzsche’s final position actually include the Will to Power in any way that could be
counted as metaphysical? Answer: Heidegger says, “Yes”. Heidegger may also be interpreting
Nietzsche as to his intentions even if Nietzsche’s writings suggested that Nietzsche pulled
back from any metaphysical claim about the Will to Power (or the will to more, will to will).
Heidegger said “Nietzsche remains caught in metaphysics: from beings to Being; and he exhaust
all possibilities of this basic position…” (Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning). GA 65,
page 18. Note English translation p. 127, 1936-1939).

For Heidegger, Nietzsche’s will, revaluation of all values, analysis of nihilism, overman, amor
fati, eternal return of the same, is all part of modern metaphysics of subjecticity (Subiectitat)
and subjectivity (Subjektivitat). [See also: Husserl’s attack of at least on Heidegger (and you
can include others for example Wilhelm Dilthey, Max Scheller) of all doing some kind of
philosophical anthropology. This was done in the famous Husserl lecture “Phenomenology
and Anthropology” given the 10 of the June 1931, in Berlin, Germany].

One anti-metaphysical strand.

87
Lou Andreas-Salomé sort of Nietzsche’s women friend was the first one to write about the
major periods in the development of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche wrote and published
some 15+ books. Some have suggested that Nietzsche during his middle period as being a
straight positivist. Interestingly, during this time besides his reading of Ernst Mach (1838-
1916) he also sent a copy of Genealogy of Morals to Ernst Mach in late 1887. The Vienna Circle
that influence recent philosophical development (Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970), Wittgenstein,
Quine, Gödel, and many more) it was first called Ernst Mach Society. Rudolf Carnap attended
Husserl’s advanced seminars on phenomenology during 1924 and 1925 and by 1932 had
published “Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache” attacking one
of Husserl’s famous student Martin Heidegger. The historical context shows multiple
influences leading to our present question of the place of metaphysics and its overcoming in
the current philosophical discussions – we even have a recent title like Postmetaphysical Thinking
(1988) by Jürgen Habermas (1929 - ).

In Chapter 20 of Heidegger’s Nietzsche I ("Nietzsche's Attempt to Overturn Platonism on the

Basis of Fundamental Experience of Nihilism") Heidegger says,
"It is indisputable that prior to the time of his work on the planned magnus opus, The Will to
Power, Nietzsche went through a period of extreme positivism; these were the years 1879-81,
the years of his decisive development toward maturity. Such positivism, though of course
transformed, became a part of his later fundamental also…”

What does Nietzsche say about metaphysics itself?

Nietzsche interestingly enough writes, in the notebook from the end of 1876 to summer 1877.

eKGWB/NF-1876, 23 [159]
“I want to expressly explain to readers of my earlier writings that I have given up on the
metaphysical-artistic views which essentially dominate them: they are pleasant but untenable.
Anyone who allows himself to speak publicly at an early age is usually forced to publicly
disagree soon afterwards.” [23 = Mp XIV 1b. Ende 1876 — Sommer 1877].

Nietzsche’s notebook Summer 1872- early 1873. 19 [83].

“But if metaphysics is eliminated, then gradually the humanity will appear much other great
again. I mean, the philosopher will prefer other areas…”

88
Nietzsche’s notebook Winter 1872-1873. 23 [7]
“What is philosophy now? 1. The impossibility of metaphysics.”

Nietzsche’s notebook Summer 1872- early 1873. 19 [247].

“The truth and its value as a pure metaphysical.”

Nietzsche’s notebook Summer 1878. 29 [45]

“Why you should not play metaphysically allowed? and use the enormous power of the whole
work out?”

Nietzsche’s notebook Summer 1878. 29 [49].

“Why not allow religion and metaphysics as a game of adults?”

Nietzsche wrote in his published writings:

“It is still a metaphysical faith on which our faith in science rests, we also we know of today,
we godless and antimetaphysicians, we also take our fire from the fire that a thousand years
old faith has inflamed, those Christians Faith which was Plato 's belief that God is the truth,
that the truth is divine ... But just as this becomes more and more unbelievable, when nothing
proves to be more than divine, except the error blindness, the lie - if God proves to be our
longest lie?” (Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, Section 24).

Rejections of metaphysical ideas by Nietzsche “Among Germans I am understood

immediately when I say that philosophy has been corrupted by theologian instinct. The
Protestant pastor is the grandfather of German Philosophy…” The Antichrist: Curse on
Christianity, page 109. Translation by Thomas Wayne.

1). Rejection of ontology and Being.

Nietzsche’s version of the rejection of ontology and the doctrine of Being. Certainly a
different version from Heidegger’s lifelong pursuit of meaning and truth of the Being of
beings (contra Thomas Sheehan’s counterclaim). Nietzsche rejected Being (Sein) an empty
(“But with this Heraclitus will always be right that Being is an empty fiction. The "apparent"
world is the only one: the "true world" is only lied to ...)” (Twilight of the Idols or How to
Philosophize with a Hammer, “Reason in Philosophy” section #2, 1888). [Aber damit wird
Heraklit ewig Recht behalten, dass das Sein eine leere Fiktion ist. Die „scheinbare“ Welt ist die
einzige: die „wahre Welt“ ist nur hinzugelogen.]

Nietzsche used the term ontology three times in his writings (Philosophy in the Tragic age of the
Greeks; (1873) and in two notes: 1886 7 [4]; and 1888, 14 [169]).

89
First time about Parmenides theme of ontology, moral ontology, and brief remark about the
ontological proof of God. In the discussion of Parmenides and theme of ontology, Nietzsche
follows up with these thought about Being (Philosophy in the Tragic age of the Greeks, (1873);
section #11).

“This is precisely why the concept of "being" - which is only just Being essentia - not
even close to an existentia of Being. The logical truth of that opposition, "Being" and
"nothingness (Nichtsein)" is completely empty, if not the underlying subject
matter, unless the intuition can be given from this conflict, by abstraction, is derived, it is
without this go back to the view, just a game with representations (Vorstellungen), by which
is in fact nothing detected.”

eKGWB/Notebook June–July 1885. 38 [14].

“From the etymology and history of the language we all take their words as become, as many
still becoming, in a way that must be the most general terms, as the most false, and the
oldest. "Being (Sein)", "substance" and "unconditional", "equality", "thing" -: the thinking
invented the first and oldest of these schemes, which in fact contradicted the world of
becoming the most thoroughly…” [38 = Mp XVI 1a. Mp XVI 2a. Mp XV 2b. Juni–Juli
1885].

Later in this same note, Nietzsche writes:

“The "thing" is only a fiction, the "thing-in-itself" even a contradictory illicit fiction: but also
the recognition, the absolute and consequently also the relative, is also only a fiction! In this
way, the necessity of recognizing a subject for recognition, some pure "intelligence," an
"absolute spirit" is lost: this mythology, which Plato had not given up completely for Kant and
who, with the Christian ground dogma "God is a spirit," threatened all science of the body,
and thus also the development of the body with death, ---- this mythology has now had its
time.”

eKGWB/Notebook 14 [169].
“The will to power
1). Put, it is worth more, why should it be more real than this?
... is reality a quality of perfection? - But that is the ontological proof of God ...]

[Der Wille zur Macht

1). Gesetzt, sie ist mehr werth, warum sollte sie mehr real sein als diese?
… ist die Realität eine Qualität der Vollkommenheit? — Aber das ist ja der ontologische
Beweis Gottes…]

90
2). Rejection of God.
eKGWB/NF-1885, 34 [204]. April-June 1885.
‘Finally, it came to me that the world's most negative of all possible modes of thinking is that
which in itself is called evil, and which acknowledges only the unconditioned, one, conscience,
and beings: I found that God was the most destructive and most hostile of all thoughts, and
that the knowledge of this "truth" has been waiting so long for the monstrous confusion of
the dear pious and metaphysicians of all times. Forgive me that I myself am not at all willing
to renounce one of these two ways of thinking - I should have to abandon my task, which
requires opposing means.”

Above this remark, it is written the expression, “Die Logik des Atheismus”.
“I am bound to affirm my unbelief; in my eyes there is no greater idea than the denial of God.
What is the history of humanity? Man did nothing but invent God so as not to kill himself. I,
as the first one, push back the fiction of God ...”
eKGWB/NF-1887, 11 [334] —November 1887 — March 1888. 11 = W II 3. KSA, pages
143-144.

Most famous section and quote from Nietzsche.

Section entitled “The Madman”:
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How we console ourselves, the
murderers of all murderers?” The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”), Section 125, 1887.

Moreover, and then in the The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”), “The greatest recent event – that
“God is dead,” that the belief in the Christian god has become unbelievable – is already
beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe.” 1887, section 343.

“The overman is the meaning of the earth... I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the
earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of other-worldly hopes!... Once the sin
against God was the greatest sin; but God died...To sin against the earth is now the most
dreadful thing”. (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, page 125).

From Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer

"Reason" in language: oh what a deceitful old wenches! I fear we are not going on God,
because we still believe (faith, glauben) in grammar...”
Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. Friedrich Nietzsche [Götzen-Dämmerung.
English]. The "reason" in Philosophy, Section 5. Page 18.

“The term "God" has been the greatest objection to existence (Dasein)... We deny God, we
deny the responsibility in God: we only deliver to the world. – (Wir leugnen Gott, wir leugnen
die Verantwortlichkeit in Gott: damit erst erlösen wir die Welt).” Twilight of Idols or How to
Philosophize with a Hammer. Four Errors, section 8.
91
From The Antichrist: Curse on Christianty.
“The Christian concept of God — God as God of the sick, God as spider, God as spirit — is
one of the most corrupt conceptions of God ever attained on earth; perhaps it even represents
the low-water mark in the descending development of the god-type. God degenerated into the
contradiction of life instead of being its transfiguration and eternal yea! In God a declaration
of war against life, nature, and the will to life! God the formula for every slander of “this
world,” for every lie about “that world”! In God nothingness deified, the will to nothingness
sanctified! ...The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity, page 116-117. Translation by Thomas Wayne.

From The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity.

“This does not set us apart, that we find no God again, neither in history, nor in nature, nor
behind nature — but that we feel what has been revered as God to be not “godly” but pitiful,
absurd, harmful, not merely an error but a crime against life... We deny God as God... If one
were to prove this God of the Christians to us, we would know still less how to believe in
him.” The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity, page 151. Translation by Thomas Wayne.

From The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity.

“Section 19.
But there is a curse on them for not being able to cope with it: they have absorbed the disease,
the age, the contradiction into all their instincts - they have not created a god ever since! Two
thousand years almost and not a single new God!..” [Zwei Jahrtausende beinahe und nicht ein
einziger neuer Gott!]. Translation by Thomas Wayne.

From: in Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, but first edition published in
1908). Section 10. “Why I am so smart.”
“You just have to start learning something here. What humanity has so far seriously
considered are not even realities, mere imaginings, more strictly spoken, lies out of the bad
instincts of sick, in the deepest sense harmful natures - all the concepts of "God," "soul,"
"virtue," "Sin", "beyond", "truth", "eternal life" ...” Section 10, “Why I am so smart (Warum
ich so klug bin, or clever)”.

From Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. (Section 57, (1886).
“Perhaps the day will come when the concepts of “God” and “sin,” which are the most
solemn concepts of all and have caused the most fighting and suffering, will seem no more
important to us than a child’s toy and a child’s pain seem to an old man, – and perhaps “the
old man” will then need another toy and another pain, – still enough of a child, an eternal
child!”).

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3). Rejection of metaphysicians.
eKGWB/NF-1885, 34 [204]. April-June 1885.
“Finally, it came to me that the world's most negative of all possible modes of thinking is that
which in itself is called evil, and which acknowledges only the unconditioned, one, conscience,
and beings: I found that God was the most destructive and most hostile of all thoughts, and
that the knowledge of this "truth" has been waiting so long for the monstrous confusion of
the dear pious and metaphysicians of all times. Forgive me that I myself am not at all willing
to renounce one of these two ways of thinking - I should have to abandon my task, which
requires opposing means.”

eKGWB/Notebook Fall 1887. 10 [150]

“Note for donkeys. It has been forgotten to admit to this positing of ideal also the reality of
persons: one became atheistic. But have you really renounced the ideal? ---- The last
metaphysicians still seek in essence to him the real "reality," the "thing in itself", in relation to
all others is only apparent. Their dogma that because our world is so obvious phenomenon
is not the expression of this ideal, it just does not "true" - and basically not even on the
metaphysical world, returns as the cause. The unconditioned, if it is that highest perfection,
may make impossible the reason for everything related Schopenhauer, who had decided
otherwise, necessary to the metaphysical reason to think as opposed to the ideals, as "evil
blind will": he was such then "that which appears" to be, which reveals itself in the world of
appearance.” [10 = W II 2. Herbst 1887].

eKGWB/Notebook late 1876 - summer 1877. 23 [27]

“And this is the value of such metaphysicians as Schopenhauer: they attempt a world view
(Weltbild): only pity is that it transforms the world into a human being: one might say that the
world is in great Schopenhauer. That's just not true.”

eKGWB/Notebook Spring-Summer 1888. 16 [58]

“For the spider, the spider, the most perfect being, for God is a metaphysician metaphysician:
that is calls (das heißt), he spins ...”

From the Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer (Four Errors, section 3).
“Not to mention the "thing in itself", the horrendum pudendum [a terrible shame] of the
metaphysicians!”

From The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity:

93
“Even the palest of the pale were still able to become master over him, the gentlemen
metaphysicians, the concept-albinos. They spun their webs around him so long that he,
hypnotized by their movements, became himself a spider, a metaphysician. Henceforth he
spun the world again out of himself — sub specie Spinozae
— henceforth
he transfigured himself into something ever thinner and paler, became an “ideal,” became
“pure spirit,” became “absolute,” became the “thing-in-itself” ... Downfall of a God: God
became the “thing-in-itself”...” The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity, page 116. Translation by
Thomas Wayne.

4). Rejection of the idea of eternal.

eKGWB/Notebook June–July 1885. 38 [14].
In the summer 1885 Nietzsche wrote:
“What distinguishes us from all Platonic and Leibnitz thinking separates most thoroughly, that
is: we do not believe in eternal terms, eternal values, eternal
forms, eternal souls, and philosophy insofar as it is science (Wissenschaft) and
not law, we mean only the biggest expansion of the concept (Begriff) "History".

[Was uns von allen Platonischen und Leibnitzischen Denkweisen am Gründlichsten abtrennt,
das ist: wir glauben an keine ewigen Begriffe, ewigen Werthe, ewigen Formen, ewigen Seelen;
und Philosophie, soweit sie Wissenschaft und nicht Gesetzgebung ist, bedeutet uns nur die
weiteste Ausdehnung des Begriffs “Historie“]. Notebook: 38 = Mp XVI 1a. Mp XVI 2a. Mp
XV 2b. Juni–Juli 1885. Number 38 [14].

5). Rejection of supersensuous.

“It was the honeymoon of German philosophy, all the young theologians of the
Tubingen institutions soon in the bushes - all sought after "faculties". And what they
found not all - in that innocent, rich, still youthful period of the German
spirit, in which blew the romance, the wicked fairy, into singing, back when "find" you and
"invent" to not did hold apart! Above all a fortune's "supersensible": Schelling christened
it intellectual intuition which came and with it the heartiest longing of the basically pious
inclined German. It is this whole arrogant and fanatical movement…” (Beyond Good and Evil:
Prelude to a philosophy of the future. (Section 11, (1886).

94
eKGWB/NF-1885, 34[82] — Nachgelassene Fragmente April–Juni 1885.
“- Anti-Kant.
Fortune, instinct, heredity, habit," who thinks to explain something with such words, must be
humble today, and, moreover, badly trained. But at the end of the last century it was raging.
Galiani explained everything from habits and instincts. Hume explained the sense of causality
out of habit; Kant, with great calm said: "it is a fortune". All the world was happy, especially
when he also discovered a moral faculty. Here lay the magic of his philosophy: the young
theologians of the Tübingen monastery went into the bushes - everyone was looking for
"fortune". And what could not be found! Schelling christened "intellectual intuition," a power
for the "transcendental". Schopenhauer thought of an already sufficiently estimated fortune,
of the will, that they have found that more and more, namely "the thing in itself". In England,
the instinctualists and intuitionists of morality emerged. It was the old matter of faith and
knowledge, a sort of "formal faith" which claimed some content. History is essentially the
theologians. Leibnitz is alive again, and behind Leibnitz-Plato. The terms as ἀνάμνησις, etc.
This skeptical movement is, in fact, directed against Scepsis, it has a pleasure in submission.”

Note definition: scepsis (ˈskɛpsɪs) is a philosophical doubt or a skepticism concept. From

Greek σκέψις skepsis, "inquiry".

6). Rejection of Platonism.

Nietzsche’s early note often quoted by Martin Heidegger.

eKGWB/Notebook. End 1870 to April 1871. 7 [156].

“My philosophy inverted <upside down> Platonism: the farther from the true being, the more
purely beautiful it is better. The life in appearance as a goal.”
[Meine Philosophie umgedrehter Platonismus: je weiter ab vom wahrhaft Seienden, um so reiner
schöner besser ist es. Das Leben im Schein als Ziel]. NF-1870, 7 [156]. [7 = U I 2b. Ende 1870
— April 1871.

95
Next in Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. (1886). Emphasis added by
author. Preface, June 1885.
“It seems that all the great things about the human race to enroll with eternal demands in the
heart, just as enormous and awe-faces to wander about the earth: a caricature of this kind was
the dogmatic philosophy, for example, the Vedanta doctrine in Asia, the Platonism in
Europe. Let us not be ungrateful to it, as surely it must be conceded that the worst, most
tedious and dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist error - namely Plato's invention
of pure spirit and the good in itself.”

I think the follow quote from James Magrini gives us the background about Nietzsche overall
engagement and attempt to completely overcome or overturn Platonism as seen from a
metaphysical point of view.

“At the backdrop of this Platonist-Christian (Platonism) privileging of the super-sensuous

world, Nietzsche attempts to return to the realm of the senses which involves an overturning
of the Platonic world view. What ensues is a revaluation of the metaphysical standard of truth
and an initiation towards a “physiological” aesthetics. At first glance, positivism appears to
accomplish such a move as described, for positivism inverts Platonism’s value system by
removing the super-sensuous from a position of importance, no longer designating it as “true
Being.” In its place, empirical presentation (positum) becomes the new “truth” standard of
reality. Nevertheless, positivism is not a radical overcoming of Platonism in the Nietzschean
sense, for it continues the proliferation of nihilism, and like its counterpart, embraces the
unnatural bifurcation of existence, i.e., the comparative ideal of the “true world” against which
values are measured and judged. Although positivism casts aside the ideal of the super-
sensuous as the “true world,” it retains the ideal of the “true world,” and along with it the
“blueprint of an ‘above and below.’” Positivism continues to operate within Platonism’s
system of hierarchy. Empirical validation becomes the gold standard establishing the world of
“appearances” (in this case, the super-sensuous world), as that which constitutes all things
which are not truly in Being. Initially, Nietzsche’s undertaking seems to repeat the move of
positivism, i.e., establishing the “sensual” as the criterion for determining “True reality.”
However, Nietzsche does not intend to establish an alternative form of positivism by merely
reversing the structure of knowledge. Rather, he seeks to attack the root of nihilism,
abolishing the destructive “essence” of Platonism – the distinction between “true and
apparent” world.” KRITIKE VOLUME THREE NUMBER ONE (JUNE 2009) 116-138.
“Truth, Art, and the “New Sensuousness”: Understanding Heidegger’s Metaphysical Reading
of Nietzsche”. By James Magrini.

Nietzsche says in the Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer:
“6. The true world--we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps?
But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.
(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of (pinnacle)
humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)”.

96
Now you can see how Nietzsche’s metahistory of philosophy fits in with his critical
engagement with Platonism and metaphysics in general. The question remains for Heidegger
at least – does Nietzsche abolish the Platonic distinction between the true and apparent world
(true world as eternal)? Heidegger would answer a definitive: no.

eKGWB/NF-1888, 24 [1] - Period from October to November 1888.

“It has been dearly paid that this Athenian went to school with the Egyptians (probably
among the Jews in Egypt.) In the great disgrace of Christianity, Plato is one of those fatal
ambiguities which made it possible for the nobler natures of antiquity which led to the "cross"
... My recovery, my preference, my cure of all Platonism was Thucydides every
time. Thucydides, and, perhaps, the Principe of Machiavelli, are most closely related to me, by
their absolute will not to pretend and to see reason in reality-not in "reason," even less in
"morality." the miserable fairy-tale, which the classical German educated as a reward for his
"seriousness" in the intercourse with antiquity, cures nothing so thoroughly as Thucydides.”

Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. Section: What I owe to the
ancients, 2. First publication 24/11/1888.
“My recreation, my preference, my cure from all Platonism was at any time Thucydides.
Thucydides and, perhaps, the Principe of Machiavelli, are themselves most closely related
unconditional by the will, and is nothing to fool and to see reason in reality - not in the
"reason", even less in "morality"...”. Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer

Heidegger writes in his essay “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth” (1940) that Nietzsche is the “most
unrestrained Platonist in the history of Western metaphysics” (et. p. 174). Nietzsche is entirely
caught by metaphysics (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936–1938. GA 65, et page 127).
Heidegger points toward one of his basic attacked against Nietzsche are the claims that
Nietzsche early on recognized his basic philosophical position was the task of overturning
Platonism. The two basic points for Heidegger in Western metaphysics is the first beginning
marked by Plato and the second who marks the end is Nietzsche. This distinction is the
relationship between the supersensuous (Übersinnlichen) and sensuous. Plato’s ideas are in
the domain of the supersensuous and Nietzsche’s Ockham’ s razor cuts (lex parsimoniae)
away the supersensuous (true world, see Section 4 from Nietzsche's Twilight of Idols or How to
Philosophize with a Hammer, HOW THE "TRUE WORLD" FINALLY BECAME A FABLE.
The History of an Error) and leaves us with the sensuous or apparent world. Of course, at
some points, Nietzsche wants to do away with this distinction and hence this leads us out of
Platonism. Certainly, Plato and Nietzsche were antipodes on the world of ideas. For Nietzsche
there are no eternal ideas. Heidegger’s point is that Nietzsche wanted to invert Platonism and
still in general Nietzsche was stuck in the Platonist distinction of the supersensuous and
sensuous worlds. Nietzsche’s thinking was hung-up within this distinction.
97
Nietzsche was on the verge of seeing through his inversion of Platonism, but taking his overall
considerate is still within the web of Platonism. Western philosophy is just a series of
footnotes to Plato according to a famous saying by Alfred North Whitehead. However, with
Heidegger he sees this as the metahistory of metaphysics and forgottenness of Being as being
caught in the limitation of Platonism or the inadequacy of western metaphysics. After
Heidegger sees these limitations, this is the way that Heidegger wants to break out in to a new,
other beginning for philosophy. Heidegger’s break out is done through a confrontation with
Platonism and its entanglement in Nietzsche’s inversion of Platonism. Western metaphysics
has happened all within the limitation and realm of Platonism. Nietzsche sees Christianity as
Platonism for the people.

For Heidegger, Nietzsche is simply the extreme opposition (the antagonist opponent) to
eternal truth and ideas of Platonism. Although Nietzsche was reading many of the early
Greek philosophers, the task for Nietzsche is still within the dominion of the fundamental
trends of his engagement with Platonism. It should be noted that there is nothing of Kant or
Hegel or the German philosophers in Nietzsche’s on-going development and thinking. The
crux to Nietzsche for Heidegger is Nietzsche’s opposition to Platonism. For Heidegger,
Nietzsche is trapped within the limited horizon of Platonism. Heidegger said, “Nietzsche
remains caught in metaphysics: from beings to Being; and he exhaust all possibilities of this basic
position…” (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936–1938. GA 65 182, page 127). Hence,
according to Heidegger, Nietzsche task is simply the overturning (Umkehrung) of Platonism

Heidegger on the other hand is completely contra to this reading of Western metaphysics.
Through the philosophical comprehension of the early Greeks and a deeper understanding of
Aristotle, Heidegger gains a sweeping perception of the Greeks that leads to recovery and
retrieval of the question about the meaning or the truth of Being of beings without those
essential elements of Platonism. Heidegger’s judgment of Nietzsche as the “most unrestrained
Platonist” shows unmistakably Heidegger’s contra interpretation of the Greeks. Heidegger
wrote, “Nietzsche was stuck in this interpretation because he did not recognize the guiding-
question as such and did not enact the crossing to the grounding-question.” (Beiträge zur
Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936–1938. GA 65, section 110, et page 153).

Letter to Paul Deussen (16 December 1887), “perhaps this old Plato is my true great
opponent? But how proud I am to have such an opponent!”

98
7). Rejection of the dignity of humanity
(metaphysicians).
eKGWB/Notebook late 1886 — early 1887. 7 [3]
“The most common sign of modern times, man has lost in his own eyes to
incredible dignity. Long as the center and tragic hero of existence at all, then at least try to
prove themselves as related to the crucial and inherently valuable side of existence – like
all metaphysicians do, want to stick that the dignity of man with their belief that the moral
values are cardinal values. Those let God drop, the stricter the cling faith to morality.”

8). Rejection of eternal values.

Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. 1886.
“According to new philosophers, there is no choice for spirits strong and original enough to
give the impetus to opposite estimates of value and re-esteemed "eternal values" to repent, to
advance; envoy to people in the future, which in the presence of the constraint and tie knots,
forcing the will of thousands of new ways (Bahnen).”

9). Rejection of immorality.

The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity, Section 203. 1888.
“Granted the "immortality" to every Peter and Paul was previously the largest, the most
vicious attack on the noble humanity. - And we underestimate the fatality is
not that of Christianity has slipped off into politics!”

Dawn. Thoughts about the moral prejudices. (Morgenröte – Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurteile).
1881. Section IV, 211.
“To the dreamers of immortality. - This beautiful awareness of yourself so you want
everlasting life? Is not that shameless? Think you not at all the other things that you will be
forever and ever bear him how they have you been if borne with a more than Christian
patience?”

99
 Possible Metaphysical Claims for the idea
of
Will-to-Power
What is Nietzsche getting at with expression “will to power” (Der Wille zur Macht)? First it is
important to know there is history to the general concept of “will” in Kant and much more
importantly in Schopenhauer with Nietzsche was in a critical dialogue most his mature years.
Heidegger says Nietzsche is contra Schopenhauer on the nature of “will”. Second, Nietzsche
used the expression “will to _____” with many word and concepts.

Nietzsche’s planed for a long time was to write a major work entitled: Will to Power. Toward
the end he left this book project; so therefore the the Will-to-Power does have a special plane
in Nietzsche’s philosophy and thought.

I think Will-to-Power is better characterized in English now as simply: will to life or life force.
Although Nietzsche does use the expression, Will to Life. The implications of the concept of
Power (Macht) is the fact that life wants to survive and needs Power in order to make use of
its environment to survive. Perhaps too simple way of looking at the concept; but that is my
sense of all of the usages that Nietzsche’s uses the expression. On the other hand, what else
could it mean? As all of Nietzsche’s primary concepts it greatly overdetermined by Nietzsche
without becoming clear on the expression and concepts. In addition, Nietzsche is not writing
a newspaper article, he is punch his way out of the brown paper bag of philosophical spider
webs. Note: remember on the concept of Will – Nietzsche says that Truth is not really
“Truth” but whatever some animal needs to believe as truth to survive.

In Heidegger’s work entitled, “Who is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra?” he says the following about
Schelling’s Freedom treatise and the Will:
“The essential coinage of Being comes to language in classic form in several sentences
formulated by Schelling in his Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom and the
Objects Pertaining Thereto (1809).

The three central and core sentences by Schelling reads:

‘In the final and highest instance there is no other Being than willing. Willing is primal Being,
and to it willing alone all of the predicates of the same primal Being apply: absence of
conditions; eternity; independence from time; self-affirmation. All philosophy strives solely in
order to find this supreme expression. Schelling assets that the predicates which metaphysical
thought since antiquity has attributed to Being find their ultimate, supreme, and thus
consummate configuration in willing. However, the will of the willing meant here is not a
faculty of the human soul. Here the word willing names the Being of beings as whole. Such
Being is will”. (Heiddgger’s book on Schelling, et page 222).
100
Will to power (Der Wille zur Macht). One of the most quote remark by Nietzsche for the
claim that the Will to Power is a metaphysical statement or theory or a metaphysical claim by
Nietzsche.

eKGWB/NF-1185, Notebook August-September 1885. 40 [61].

[40 = W I 7a. August–September 1885].

“To plan.
Our intellect, our will, just as our emotions depend are our estimates of value: they correspond
to our desires and their conditions of existence. Our instincts are reduced to the will to power.
The will to power is the last Factum, to which we come down.” (Der Wille zur Macht ist das
letzte Factum, zu dem wir hinunterkommen).”

This last sentence is often used by Heidegger et al. for the claim that Nietzsche is making a
metaphysical statement or claim by saying the will to power is the last fact. However, in
translating the entire note you can see the context much better. I think it is clear within the
context of Nietzsche’s philosophy and more specifically within the context of this note – that
Nietzsche’s statement is in fact not a metaphysical claim.

eKGWB/Notebook Spring 1888, 14 [80]. Nice, 25 March 1888.

"If the innermost essence of Being (Wesen des Seins) is will to power, if lust all the growth of
the power, un-lust all feeling, do not resist and be able to master, is: should we not then begin
lust and un-lust as cardinal facts?

Is will (Wille) possible without these two oscillations of the Yes and No? But who feels lust? ...
But who wants power? ... Absurd question: if the essence is the will power (Machtwille) itself
and consequently feel lust and un-lust.”

eKGWB/NF-1888, 14 [121] Notebooks spring 1888.

“That the will to power is the primitive affective form is that all other affects are only its
configurations: that there is a great enlightenment in place of the individual "happiness"
according to which each living being is to strive to put power: "it strives for power, for more
in power" - pleasure is only a symptom of the feeling of the attained power, a difference-
consciousness-it does not aspire to pleasure, but pleasure enters when it reaches, according to
which it strives: pleasure accompanies, pleasure does not move ... That all driving force is will
to power that there is no physical, dynamic, or psychical power in our science, where the
concept of cause and effect is reduced to the relation of equations with the ambition to prove
that there is quantum of force on every side the driving force: we consider only results, we
place them as equal in content in force, we take the question of causing change ... it is a mere
experience that the change does not cease: in itself we have not the slightest reason to
understand, that one change must follow another.”
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eKGWB/NF-1885, 38 [12] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Juni–Juli 1885.
“And do you know what is "the world" to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This
world: a monster of power, without beginning, without end, a firm, bronze size of power,
which does not become larger, not smaller, which is not consumed but only transformed, as a
whole invariably large, a budget without expenditures and losses, but as well as without
growth, without revenue, surrounded by "nothing," as nothing from its boundaries, nothing
blurring, wasted, nothing infinite, but a definite space, and not a space which would be
"empty" somewhere as a force everywhere, as a play of forces and force waves, at the same
time one and "many things," accumulating here and at the same time diminishing there, a sea
in itself of stormy and flowing forces, eternally changing, eternally receding, with immense
years of return an ebb and flow of its forms, pushing from the simplest into the most varied,
from the most silent, the stiffest, the coldest, into the ardent (Glühendste) and then returning
from the fullness to the simple, from the play of contradictions back to the pleasure of the
harmony, self-affirming even in this likeness of its paths and years, blessing itself as that which
is, which must be eternally recurring, as a becoming, which knows no satiation, no weariness,
no fatigue. This my Dionysian world of the self-self-creation, of the self-destroying itself, this
mystery world of double lust, that my goal of good and evil, without goal, if not in the
happiness of the circle a goal lies, without will, if not a ring has to its own good will, would
you a name for this world? A solution for all their riddles? a light also for you, your most
secret, strongest, most intrepid, most midnight? --- This world is the will to power --- and nothing
else! And you, too, are this will to power --- and nothing else!” [Diese Welt ist der Wille zur
Macht—und nichts außerdem! Und auch ihr selber seid dieser Wille zur Macht —und nichts
außerdem!]. See Will to Power, #1067 (1885), et page 530.

This is well known quote for Nietzsche’s metaphysical doctrine of Will to Power “world is will
to power”. Is Nietzsche doing metaphysics in this remark?

Nietzsche quotes himself in Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition
published in 1908), from the section entitled (name of his own book): “The Twilight of the Idols
or How to Philosophize with a Hammer:
“The yea-saying to life, even to its strangest and hardest problems; the will to life, rejoicing
over its own inexhaustibility in the sacrifice of its highest types — that is what I called
Dionysian, that is what I understood as the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet.”

God degenerated into the contradiction of life instead of being its transfiguration and eternal
yea! In God a declaration of war against life, nature, and the will to life! God the formula for
every slander of “this world,” for every lie about “that world”! In God nothingness deified,
the will to nothingness sanctified! ...”

102
Nietzsche says:
“What is good? — Everything that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power
itself in man. What is bad? — Everything that stems from weakness. What is happiness? —
The feeling that power is increasing — that a resistance is overcome. Not contentment, but
more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue but proficiency (virtue in the Renaissance
style, virtue, moraline–free virtue).” The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity, Translation by Thomas
Wayne. Definition: French word “moraline” right way of moral thinking [editor’s note].

Nietzsche aligns himself with the powerful contra weak and weakness. What is ascending?
What is on the decline? Where does Nietzsche stand? He stands with the ascending and
powerful! Contra the sheep and the herd. Rather fly with the eagles.

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 Connection of the Will to Power and Amor Fati
Nietzsche on Amor Fati
Why Nietzsche would use an expression in Latin like amor fati and only a few times to express
his inner most nature? Nietzsche’s thinking about amor fati spans from 1881-1889, through
four published sources, six unpublished notes and a letter written in 1882. All of these
passages will be analyzed chronological in the following section.

Amor fati – love of fate. Nietzsche may have been contrasting amor fati to Spinoza’s amor dei
intellectualis. Nietzsche’s own use of amor fati lines up (1881) when Nietzsche was reading Kuno
Fischer’s book Geschichte der neuern Philosophie (1865), which includes a section on B. Spinoza
(1632-1677). There is a copy of this book currently in Nietzsche’s library. There is also a letter
to Overbeck in July 30, 1881, where Nietzsche links his thinking with his ‘precursor”, namely,
Spinoza. Nevertheless, in fact, Spinoza and Nietzsche are opposite in many ways, they are
indeed antipodes philosophically. [See Yovel Y. (1986) Nietzsche and Spinoza: amor
fati and amor dei. In: Yovel Y. (eds) Nietzsche as Affirmative Thinker. Note I just (Jan 2020) came
upon this reference. However, as all things Nietzschean there is always a secondary literature
on all topics in Nietzsche. See examples, Nietzsche and Napoleon. The Dionysian Conspiracy, or
Zarathustra Stone. Friedrich Nietzsche in Sils-Maria, August 1881].

Therefore, amor fati is the love of fate, love of the necessity of human life on the earth, not the
love of God. You should live your life as if you love your fate, do not worry, you will live
your life as your fate – you have no choice. For Nietzsche, the Dionysian and the eternal
return of the same are wrapped up in a Heraclitean innocent of becoming; and these
‘concepts’ are all linked to the requirement of your love of your earthly fate, namely, amor fati.
If there is no Hinterwelten, then what is left on earth? Answer: your own inimitable fate.

Analysis of Nietzsche’s thought on amor fati in chronological order

The first use of amor fati dates from autumn of 1881. Nietzsche wrote, “Copy by R. W.
Emerson autumn 1881. First the necessary, the needful (Noethige) - and this so beautifully
and perfectly as you can! ” love what is necessary (nothwendig)" - amor fati this would be my
moral, it all property on and lifts it up over its terrible origin to you.” (KGW=v.2541
KSA=9.643. V.15 [20]).

Emerson does write about fate, but Nietzsche transforms this, if indeed there is any real
connection to Emerson. Here amor fati is moral in the ethical realm, but even at this point
there is an attachment to the concept of necessity. This is the first known use of amor fati in all
of Nietzsche’s writings.

104
Nietzsche wrote, “Yes! I want to only love still, what is necessary (nothwendig)! Yes! Amor fati
is my last love!" (Dezember 1881 – Janurar 1882 KGW=V-2.562 KSA=9.664, V.16 [22]).
eKGWB/NF-1881, 16 [22] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Dezember 1881 — Januar
1882.

Love the necessity of life. What is necessary? Answer: love of fate. In many passages,
Nietzsche is linking amor fati to the notion of “necessity”. What is necessity? Answer:
inevitability. What will be, will be and you should love what will be – even if you think you
have a choice you should love your fate.

Nietzsche wrote, “Also I am in a mood of fatalistic “surrender to God” (Gottergebenheit) I

call it amor fati, so much so, that I would have rush into a lion’s jaw, not to mention --
(Naumburg, ca. June 5, 1882: Letter to Franz Overbeck. Selected letters of Friedrich Nietzsche,
1969, page 184).” eKGWB/BVN-1882, 236 — Brief AN Franz Overbeck: etwa 5. Juni
1882.

What makes Nietzsche speak about the surrender or devotion to God? Why a mood and not
a metaphysical statement? If you surrender to God’s will, then there is no issue of your fate
that is inner directed. There is a still a strong recurring theme of fatalism in Nietzsche.

Fatalism affirms the inevitable.

Nietzsche wrote in “The Gay Science ("la gaya scienza") Book IV 276. (First edition 1882). “I
want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things: —then I shall be
one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love from henceforth! I do
not want to wage war (Krieg) against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want
to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation! And all in all and on the
whole: someday I wish to be only a Yes-sayer!” FW-276 — Die fröhliche Wissenschaft: ("la gaya
scienza") § 276. Erste Veröff. 10/09/1882.

This passage is the first published use of the amor fati. We must attempt to see all of the
necessity in things in general. Nietzsche is highly critical of so many philosophers, –isms in
philosophy, people, and cultures, so it is rare when Nietzsche wants to be a yes-sayer and
move to the affirmation. What is necessary in things, sounds like will-to-power and the
necessity of that will in the world. Moreover, he wants to make things beautiful. This is
Nietzsche wanting to become the artist. Twice Nietzsche brings up amor fati in the context of
Richard Wagner (1813-1883), who for a while was Nietzsche’s ideal of an artist. Nietzsche is
on the edge here with an aesthetic fatalism. Does it mean that Nietzsche’s yes-saying is a
metaphysical statement about the world?

Nietzsche wrote a title of a book he wanted to write,

“Wisdom and love for the wisdom Prolegomena for a philosophy of the future. By Friedrich Nietzsche.”
“eKGWB/Die Fragmente von Frühjahr 1884 bis Herbst 1885 [Frühjahr 1884. VII.25
[500], KGW= VII-2.141, KSA=11.145”. NF-1884, 25 [500].
105
Under the draft title of this book is simply two words: amor fati. This is one of the many,
many drafts of books projects that Nietzsche seemed to be writing down endlessly. Nietzsche
has read Ludwig Feuerbach’s (1804-1872) Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (1843) (there is
a copy in Nietzsche’s library) and was influence by him; and hence it shows in the fragment of
a book title and would later resurface in Nietzsche’s book of 1886 as Jenseits von Gut und Böse:
Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft (Beyond Good and Evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future). Thus,
Nietzsche would have the content of a book on wisdom and the love of wisdom; described in
just two simple words: amor fati.

Nietzsche wrote, “One final point, perhaps the highest: I justify the Germans, I alone. We are
in contrast, we are untouchable for each other, and there is no bridge, no question, and no
look between us. But that is the condition for that ultimate degree of self-determination, self-
solving, which became man in me: I am loneliness as a man ... That I have never reached a
word compelled me to reach myself ... I would not be possible without a Protestant race,
without Germans, without these Germans, without Bismarck, without 1848, without
"freedom war", without Kant, without Luther himself... The great cultural crimes of the
Germans justify themselves in a higher economy of civilization I will not want anything else ...
Amor fati ... Even Christianity is necessary: the highest form, the most dangerous, the most
seductive in the no to life, demands only its highest affirmation - me ... What are these last?
two thousand years? Our most instructive experiment, a vivisection in life itself ... Just two
years' end...!“ eKGWB/Fragmente Dezember 1888—Anfang Januar 1889
KGW=VIII-3.445 KSA=13.641 VIII.25 [7]. NF-1888, 25 [7].

The thought here is just like the eternal return of the same – the eternal return of necessity is
amor fati. The necessity leads directly to amor fati. It does, however, point to the issues of
necessity and if you have a choice to want your fate to be different. While it is in some sense
undeniable that choice and fate are directly opposite each other, but Nietzsche is pointing out
that I do not want anything to be different. Do we accept it or are we resigned to our own
fate? Are we active or passive or acquiescence to our fate without a choice? In any case,
Nietzsche would not have allowed anything different.

Nietzsche wrote in his unique and self-absorbed autobiography, “My formula for greatness in
man is amor fati: that man does not want to have anything differently, either in the future, the
past, or for all eternity. Not only must he endure necessity, and on no account conceal it—all
idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity—but love it . . .” Ecce Homo How one becomes what
one is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908), (Why I Am So Smart, #10) (1888,
autumn). EH-Klug-10 — Ecce homo: Warum ich so klug bin, § 10. 02/01/1889.

This is Nietzsche’s polished prose (laid on the gold scales) and ripened like a good late wine.
Now, it become the greatness in man (note so positively affirming). Again as Nietzsche
explains it further, it sounds like the eternal return of the same and not only the thought of
necessity, but we should “love it”. Certainly, fatalism, but note the usage of the word “want”;
that means, not the stronger fatalism of “you will anyway” as if you had an actual choice.
106
Nietzsche wrote,
“I myself have never suffered from all this; what is necessary does not hurt me; amor fati is my
inmost nature.” Ecce Homo: How one becomes what one is (The Case of Wagner, #4) (1888,
Autumn). EH-WA-4 — Ecce homo: Der Fall Wagner, § 4.

Therefore, Nietzsche is telling us that “necessity” does not hurt because I already have amor
fati as my innermost nature. What is necessary sounds like there is no freedom and no free
will, Nietzsche has already wrung out freedom and free will. Furthermore, we should love it,
namely, love fate. Do not think you can choose something different. Side note: Eastern
philosophy, amor fati is like the Indian or Hindu concept of dharma. Dharma has the strong
notion of fatalism in it. In Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition
published in 1908); Nietzsche talks about his own version of extreme fatalism, he calls it
“Russian fatalism” where a Russian solider just lies down in the snow and dies. The final
choice.

In a similarly way, Nietzsche wrote,

“As my inmost nature teaches me, whatever is necessary as seen from the heights and in the
sense of a great economy—is also the useful par excellence: one should not only bear it, one
should love it. Amor fati: that is my inmost nature.” Nietzsche Contra Wagner Epilogue 1 (1888,
December). NW-Epilog-1 — Nietzsche contra Wagner: Epilog, § 1. 02/01/1889.
Embrace the whole idea and thought of our stance in the world as the love of fati. The
necessity is useful because it realizes that there is no love of God, since there is no God; then
yes, it is better to have only our love of our earthly fate. For Nietzsche, this is an extremely
Greek way of looking at the world (un-Christian) and our place in the world – love our fate.

This is the last passage and note that Nietzsche wrote about amor fati, here he says,

“How do I know my peers? - Philosophy, as I have so far understood and lived, is also the
prospect of voluntary cursed and wicked side of life. From the long experience which gave me
such a trek through ice and desert, I learned everything that has been philosophized who look
different: - the hidden history of philosophy, the psychology of their big names came to light
for me. "How much truth can endure; how much truth dares a ghost?"- this was for me the
real measure of value. The error is cowardice... every achievement of knowledge follows from
courage, from hardness against them, from the cleanliness to be... Such experimental
philosophy, as I live it, take a trial basis, even the possibilities of the fundamental nihilism first:
without said it would be that it would be a No (Nein), a negation, a will to No. Rather, it
wants to reverse through - up to a Dionysian yea-saying to the world as it is, without
deduction, exemption and selection – it wants the eternal cycle – the same things, the logic
and illogicalness of entanglements (Knoten).

Highest state (Höchster Zustand) which can reach a philosopher: Dionysian stand to existence
(Dasein) --: my formula is amor fati...”

107
Will to Power #1041 (et page 536). (1888) spring-summer, 1888-1889. VIII.16 [32] kgw=VIII-
3.288, ksa=13.492, CM, W II, 7a [32]. NF-1888, 16 [32] — eKGWB/Nachgelassene
Fragmente Frühjahr–Sommer 1888. Group 16 = W II 7a. Spring-summer 1888.

This note from the unpublished writings (Nachlaß), really adds many more things to
Nietzsche’s thought of amor fati. The eternal return of the same means the Dionysian
affirmation and furthermore, it wants the world as it is without anything changed. Fatalism
embraced and with the additional meaning of loving your fate. As Nietzsche has lived his
experimental philosophy, even if this means the “most fundamental nihilism” and no-saying,
he switches in the middle of this note to his most yes-saying. There are three points of
linkage: Dionysian, eternal return of the same, and amor fati. Again, Nietzsche is trying to sum
up his total “yes-saying” in two words – amor fati. Nietzsche’s “yes-saying” is against the
background of the crisis of Nihilism.

Anti-metaphysical and perspectivism

Perspectivism.

Nietzsche telling wrote a very famous passage:

“Against positivism, which stops at the phenomenon of "there are only facts," I would say
no, currently there are no facts, it is only interpretation. We can determine no Factum "in
itself": perhaps it is nonsense (Unsinn) to something as want <wish>. "It's all subjective," you
say, but even this is interpretation, the "subject" is not given, but rather something added and
invented and projected, stuck behind. - Is it necessary finally to put the artist still behind the
interpretation? Even this is poetry, hypothesis.

Insofar as the word "knowledge" makes sense (Sinn), the world is recognizable: but it is
different interpretable, it has no sense <meaning, Sinn> behind it, but rather many meanings
(Sinne) "perspectivism".

Our needs are the one to interpret the world: our instincts and their pros and cons. Each
instinct is a kind of lust for power (Herrschsucht), everyone has their perspective
(Perspektive), what it wants to impose on all other instincts as normal (als Norm)
<standard>.”
eKGWB/NF-1886, Gruppe 7 [60] . [7 = Mp XVII 3b. Ende 1886 — Frühjahr 1887].

Rejection of Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804)’s things in themselves and Hegel’s absolute

knowedge in the following passage.
“34 [120]

108
The phenomenal world of "empty illusion and deception," the necessity of causality, which
establishes connections between phenomena, likewise "empty illusion and deception" -there
comes the moral rejection of the deceptive and the apparent. You have to go over it. There
are no things in themselves, no absolute knowledge, the perspectivistic, deceptive character
belongs to existence.”
eKGWB/NF-1885, 34[120] — Nachgelassene Fragmente April–Juni 1885.

Summary.

What is Nietzsche early views on metaphysics? From 1878, he writes:

“With regard to philosophical metaphysics, I now always see several which have come to the
negative goal (that every positive metaphysics is error), but still few who climb backwards a
few rungs; one should look out over the last rung of the ladder, but not want to stand on it.
The most enlightened people only go so far as to liberate themselves from metaphysics and
look back on them with superiority: while here too, as in the Hippodrome, it is necessary to
bend the end of the path.” Human, all too human, part 1 (1878), section 20.

Indeed and then a page later in section 21, Nietzsche says:

“And if one is distrustful of metaphysics, then we have, generally speaking, the same
consequences as if metaphysics had been directly refuted and one were no longer permitted to
believe in it.” Human, all too human, part 1 (1878), section 21.

Therefore, we are no longer permitted to believe in metaphysics. Yes, it sounds about right for
Nietzsche as against metaphysics and indeed, Nietzsche is not the last metaphysician as
Heidegger claims. I think that name (last metaphysician) maybe should go to Arthur
Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872). They were both on the edge
of metaphysics and often are considered as just ourtight atheist (non-belivers). In 1844, Max
Stirner thought Feuerbach was not a complete atheist. Karl Marx (1818-1883) was completely
out of the metaphysical tradition. Remember the dates for Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).

Conclusion
I think there is a weak case that Nietzsche was some kind of metaphysician and there are some
general strands and themes (Leitmotif) that suggest Nietzsche was even more radical: clearly
one of them is in the writing about “Perspectivism”. The self-attempters and self-overcoming
also points beyond anything that generally can be called metaphysics.

What is Nietzsche philosophy?

109
eKGWB/NF-1885, 38 [12] - Nachlaß fragments June-July 1885.
“This world: a monster of strength, without beginning, without end, a firm, bronze size of
power, which does not become larger, not smaller, which is not consumed but only
transformed, as a whole invariably large, a budget without expenditures and losses, but as well
as without growth, without revenue, surrounded by "nothing," as nothing from its boundaries,
nothing blurring, wasted, not infinite, but a definite space, and not a space which is "empty"
somewhere as a force everywhere, as a play of forces and force waves, at the same time one
and "many things," here increasing and at the same time diminishing there, a sea in itself of
stormy and flowing forces, eternally changing, eternally receding, with immense years of return
an ebb and flow of his designs, from the simplest to the most varied, from the most silent, the
stiffest, the coldest to the most glowing, the wildest, the most self-contradictory, and then
returning from the fullness to the simple, from the play of contradictions back to the pleasure
of harmony, self-affirming even in this equality of its paths and years, blessing itself as that,
which must be eternally recurring, as a becoming, which knows no satiety, no weariness, no
fatigue - this my Dionysian world of the self-creation, of the self-destroying itself, this mystery
world of the double lust, that my goal of good and evil, without goal, if not in the happiness
of the circle a goal lies, without will, if not a ring has to its own good will, - you want a name
for this world?”

NOTE: Against any fix Nietzschean worldview, in the Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”), 1886, he
says, "We ourselves wish to be our experiments…" (#319).

In Heidegger’s essay from 1946, Anaximander’s Saying, Heidegger said as an aside:

“The young Nietzsche does indeed, in his own way, establish a lively relationship to the
personality of the pre-Platonic philosophers, but his interpretation of the texts are thoroughly
commonplace (herkömmlich), even quite superficial (oberflächlich) throughout.” (English
translation page. 243, Off the Beaten Track). Der Spruch des Anaximander. German page 297. GA
5). Heidegger is talking about the work by Nietzsche called the Pre-Platonic Philosophers which is
the text of a lecture series delivered by the young Friedrich Nietzsche (then a philologist) at
the University of Basel in 1869-70,

Quote from Heidegger on Nietzsche’s thought as entangled in Metaphysics (once more).

“With regard to the overcoming of metaphysics, Nietzsche is the ultimate and genuine danger
point, because his thinking appears to be such an overcoming but in truth is only the inversion
of metaphysics and so becomes its most insidious entrenchment. Thus even Nietzsche’s
concept of nihilism remains a half-measure, and all his attempts to elude metaphysics become
all the more entangled in half measures and undecidedness.” GA 96. Ponderings XII [25–26] et
page 104. GA 96. Überlegungen XII–XV (Schwarze Hefte 1939–1941), #102. Page 134.
[GA 96. Überlegungen XIII. Page 134 #. 102].

110
Heidegger wrote in 1943:
“The metaphysics, that is, for Nietzsche understood Western philosophy as Platonism, has
come to an end. Nietzsche understands his own philosophy as the counter-movement against
metaphysics, against Platonism.

As a mere counter-movement, however, it remains necessary, like all anti-being, in the essence
of what it is about. Nietzsche's counter-movement toward metaphysics, as the mere inversion
of the latter, is the hopeless entanglement in metaphysics, so that it is confined to its essence,
and as metaphysics is never able to conceive its own essence.” (Off the Beaten Track, Holzwege,
page 217.

Or on the other hand, from the year 1888, Nietzsche’s last active year, and here Nietzsche
wrote:

“C. From the self-overcoming of nihilism.

7. The will to power: psychological considerations.
8. The will to power: physiological considerations.
9. The will to power: historical and sociological analysis.”
eKGWB/NF-1888,13[4] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Anfang 1888 — Frühjahr 1888.

Certainly, this later note does not seem in line with any metaphysical claims about the Will to
Power.

111
 Nietzsche's Metahistory of philosophy
Nietzsche has a particular rich and complex relationship with the history of philosophy and
history in general. One of his good friends was the famous Swiss philosopher of history,
Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), who developed a completely new theory of cultural history.
Nietzsche not only attend his lectures, but in addition, he had student lecture notes of
different lectures that Burckhardt did over a period of many years. Burckhardt influenced
Nietzsche relationship to history and his profound effect can be seen in many of Nietzsche’s
thoughts and writings.

Nietzsche says in his autobiographical work Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in
1888, first edition published in 1908), “I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus” (Preface,
Section 2, English translation p. 217). The Greek philosophers are important for Nietzsche
as a source and origin of his thinking. For example, in the Will To Power (W. Kaufman, #419,
1885) notes,

Nietzsche says,
“A few centuries hence, perhaps, one will judge that all German philosophy derives its real
dignity from being a gradual reclamation of the soil of antiquity, and that all claims to
“originality” must sound petty and ludicrous in relation to that higher claim of the Germans to
have joined anew the bond that seemed to be broken, the bond with the Greeks…
Nietzsche sense of the Greek world and the modern world does not allow him to think of
historical progress or development like Hegel or Kant.” Nietzsche said, “But the nineteenth
century does not represent progress over the sixteenth; and the German spirit of 1888
represents a regress from the German spirit of 1788. “Mankind” does not advance, it does
not even exist.” (W. Kaufman, Will to Power, #90, Jan-Feb 1888). There are of course many
other places where Nietzsche says the same thing. Nietzsche does not seem to quite get to
the point of the Heidegger saying that the ancient Greeks were more original thinkers than the
rest of the philosophers. Nietzsche has a high regard for many things from ancient Greek.
Many themes and Leitmotifs of German philosophy can be traced to the influence of the
Greeks (topic of many published books). Is the interest in the Greeks for both philosophers
just a question of being anti-Christianity?

Nevertheless, Nietzsche does pose the question if “perhaps sick thinkers are more numerous
in the history of philosophy?” (The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”), 1886, Preface, section 2,
English translation p. 34). Nietzsche’s remarks are often tormented and murky and they
make for difficult understanding and straight foreword explanations are not easy. His
virulence and caustic quality makes his thinking and philosophy complicated to elucidate.

112
Nietzsche’s Metahistory of philosophy was ripened and put into a single page by Nietzsche in
September 1888. The year 1888 saw Nietzsche write his last four books. Although Twilight of
the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer (Die Götzen-Dämmerung) was written in 1888 it was
not published until January 24, 1889. This page is its own section (the fourth) and it contains
a complete vision of the course of the history of philosophy, namely, Nietzsche’s Metahistory
of philosophy. Heidegger’s remarks capture the critical importance of this section, “in a
magnificent moment of vision, the entire realm of Nietzsche’s thought is permeated by a new
and singular brilliance” (Nietzsche Vo1, English translation p. 202).

A Kantian note on the word, Übersinnlichen (the supersensuous). Translation note:

Übersinnlichen could be translated as oversensuous or oversense or oversensorial. Kant in
the unpublished essay, What Real Progress has Metaphysics Made in Germany Since the Time of Leibniz
and Wolff? it was written around 1793, defines metaphysics as “the science of advancing by
reason from knowledge of the sensible (Sinnliche) to the knowledge of the supersensuous.
(Progress, English translation. p. 53). The object of the Kantian problem is the transition from
the sensible (sensory) to supersensuous. There are three objects or components to the
supersensuous, namely, God, freedom, and immortality (Progress, English translation p. 294-
295). However, what can we know of these objects? In the second preface to the Critique of
Pure Reason, Kant said, “Now after speculative reason has been denied all advance in this field
of the supersensuous…” (CPR, Bxxi). Kant was not happy about this situation and went on
to say in the same paragraph that “cognitions a prior that are possible, but only from a practical
intention.” (praktischer Absicht) (CPR, Bxxi).

This is the background on Nietzsche’s thought of the “true world”. Translation note: the
German expression is “wahre Welt” this can also be translated as the “real world”, but I think
it makes more sense to translate as the “true world”. This is the realm of Plato’s idea (Greek
εἶδος (eidos) and ἰδέα (idea). The world of the forms. Alternatively, to cross the line and have
only knowledge at level of opinion (doxa Greek δόξα). Nietzsche wrote in the Will to Power,
#568 (March-June 1888), “Critique of the concept “true and apparent world”. Of these, the
first is mere fiction, constructed of fictitious entities.” Thus, there is nothing to the true world
(Will to Power, #567). These are concept-mummies (Begriffs-Mumien). Therefore, from this
analysis Nietzsche has a decisive and lucid vision of the central and inner logic of metaphysics.
For Nietzsche, this is the fundamental constitution of metaphysics and hence he uses this
distinction to lay out his Metahistory of philosophy. Does Nietzsche himself get caught
within metaphysics? Short answer: yes, but he pushes the limits of metaphysics. His finger
and thought is pointing onward. Nietzsche’s Metahistory of philosophy is partially Nietzsche
looking back into history, but Nietzsche’s vision for philosophy points toward the future. At
this point, let us read Nietzsche words and then grapple and grasp his historical/philosophical
vision.

This next page (following 6 points) is the complete text of Section 4 from Nietzsche’s Twilight
of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer (written August and September, 1888):

113
“HOW THE "TRUE WORLD" FINALLY BECAME A FABLE.
The History of an Error
1. The true world--attainable for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man; he lives in it, he is it.
(The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple, and persuasive. A circumlocution for
the sentence, "I, Plato, am the truth.")

2. The true world--unattainable for now, but promised for the sage, the pious, the virtuous
man ("for the sinner who repents").
(Progress of the idea: it becomes subtler, insidious, incomprehensible--it becomes female, it
becomes Christian.)

3. The true world--unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but the very thought of it--a
consolation, an obligation, an imperative.
(At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The idea has become elusive,
pale, Nordic, Königsbergian.)

4. The true world--unattainable? At any rate, unattained. And being unattained, also unknown.
Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown
obligate us?
(Gray morning. The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism.)

5. The "true" world--an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating--an
idea which has become useless and superfluous—consequently (therefore), a refuted idea: let us
abolish it!
(Bright day; breakfast; return of bon sens (good sense) and cheerfulness; Plato's embarrassed
blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.)

6. The true world--we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps?
But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.
(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of (pinnacle)
humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)”.
[End of section]. Translation by Walter Kaufman.

Remarks on Nietzsche’s Metahistory of philosophy as fable and an error (Irrthums).

For Nietzsche the course of the history of philosophy has just been a fable (Fabel), that is, a
fictitious story of the “true world” and man’s relationship to the “true world”. The history of
philosophy has been a fabrication, not even a legend or a parable, but rather, just a myth.
Philosophers have been confused about the supersensuous world. This is just a simple error in
thinking. However, of course, at what cost? How has this lead the Western World into a
dangerous straight? The essence of Nihilism is heard here. This fable obviously leads to
Nietzsche’s critique of the religious realm, which is full of the supersensuous world (the
eternal God). Nietzsche’s Ockham razor cuts off the world of the supersensuous.
114
Nietzsche uses the image of the different parts of the day. In point 4, we start with the
“morning”, in point 5, it is the “bright day or broad daylight”, and then in point 6, we have
“noon” (in German: Morgen, Heller Tag, Mittag). We now have the “shortest shadow” at
noon. This is the high point, the summit, the peak, the tip, the top of the rock, the apex, the
top of the wave, the very pinnacle of mankind (humanity, Menschheit).
Afterwards humanity can perish or incipit tragoedia (The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”), 1886
#342).

What are the periods of Metahistory that Nietzsche show us?

The six periods are:

1) Plato.
2) Platonism and Christian.
3) Kantian.
4) Auguste Comte (1788 – 1857) (positivism).
5) Early Nietzsche (but still caught between the two worlds).
6) Midday sun – Nietzsche’s own final philosophy in the name of Zarathustra.

In The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”), 1886, Nietzsche says, “incipit tragoedia” (#342, the tragedy
begins) and in this points to Zarathustra, whereas in this section of the Twilight of the Idols or
How to Philosophize with a Hammer, Nietzsche says “INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA” in capital
letters in both the English version and the German edition. Nietzsche asks the question in
Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908) in the
section about The Gay Science (“la gaya scienza”), where he asks the question, “What is here called
“highest hope” – who could have any doubt about that when he sees the diamond beauty of
the first words of Zarathustra flashing at the end of the fourth book?” Nietzsche’s endings are
often the beginnings. The going under (untergehen), the setting of the sun, the twilight of the
setting sun. The twilight of the old idols, the old truths (Ecce Homo, “the old truth is
approaching its end”). Nevertheless, out of the process of going under, Nietzsche says, “I am
he that brings these glad tidings. – Thus I am also a destiny.” (Ecce Homo). So from this fable and
history of error, Nietzsche does bring us something, - a gift. What is that gift? The beginning
of Zarathustra, “INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA” means the starting of the time of Zarathustra
here on earth.

Who is Zarathustra?
Zarathustra the teacher of the overman/superman (Übermensch, frenzy and lightening) and
of the eternal return of the same (ewigen Wiederkunft des Gleichen). Nietzsche says in Ecce
Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908) at the
beginning of the section on Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, “Now I shall relate
the history of Zarathustra. The fundamental conception of this work, the idea of eternal
recurrence, this highest formula of affirmation that is at all attainable…” What does this
mean for Nietzsche Metahistory of Philosophy?
115
For Nietzsche, the supreme point (point 6, midday) comes to be Nietzsche’s final philosophy.
Nietzsche’s last philosophy is at the final ultimate end point of his Metahistory of philosophy,
namely, Nietzsche, the thinker as he was during September 1888 in Sils-Maria (Upper
Engadine, Switzerland).

What is the end point (telos) or goal for Nietzsche’s Metahistory of philosophy? Answer:
Nietzsche and his Zarathustra. For Nietzsche, Zarathustra is a code name for: (negative) end
of the ideals and idols, the old truths, the end of the eternal supersensuous world, death of
God, (positive) free spirits, immoralist, Dionysus, overman, innocent of becoming, will-to-
power, and the highest affirmation – the eternal return of the same.

To summarize Nietzsche’s Metahistory of Philosophy:

1) Nietzsche Metahistory of philosophy is a fable and the history of an error, which is the
fundamental logic of metaphysics, namely, the two worlds, the eternal supersensuous
world and the apparent world.
2) Near the end of Nietzsche’s Metahistory of philosophy, we have the two worlds
abolished, but still the distinction is there. Nietzsche’s early thought moves with this
distinction.
3) The end and goal of Nietzsche’s Metahistory of philosophy is Nietzsche’s own final and
ultimate philosophy, code name: Zarathustra. Nietzsche is caught within his own
shadow. Elsewhere Nietzsche has pointed toward the future.

Overall conclusion to this section.

Not the remarks about the Will to Power inside Nietzsche remarks. It is all just interpretation.
“Give it to me as an old philologist, who cannot resist the wickedness of putting his finger on
bad interpretive arts: but the "lawfulness of nature" of which your physicist so proudly speaks
as if - - only exists Thanks to your interpretation and bad "philology" - it is not a fact, not a
"text", but rather a naive-humanitarian adjustment and turn of mind, with which you meet the
democratic instincts of the modern soul!" Everywhere equality before the law, - nature has it
no different and no better than we do": a kind of ulterior motive, in which once again lies the
rabble-ridden enmity against everything privileged and autocratic, as well as a second and finer
atheism disguised. "Ni dieu, ni maître" - that's what you want: and therefore "high the law of
nature"! - not true? But, as I said, that's interpretation, not text; and there could come
someone who, with the opposite intention and interpretation of the same nature and with
regard to the same phenomena, would read the tyrannical, ruthless and inexorable assertion of
116
claims to power, an interpreter who expresses indifference and unconditionally to all "will to
power" so much that you realize that almost every word and even the word "tyranny" would
eventually prove useless or even as debilitating and mitigating metaphor - as too human; and
yet it ended up asserting the same thing of this world as it asserts, that it has a "necessary" and
"predictable" course, but not because there are laws in it, but because absolutely the laws are
absent, and every one Power draws its last consequence in every moment. Suppose this too is
just interpretation - and you will be eager enough to object? - well, so much the better. –“.
Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future. (Section 22).

117
 Who is Nietzsche’s Übermensch (Overman)?
We will start with Nietzsche’s poem.

Pine and lightning (1882)

High I grew up over human (über Mensch) and animal;
And I talk --- nobody talks to me.
I grew too lonely and too high --
I'm waiting: what was I waiting for?
Too close to me is the clouds seat,---
I am waiting for the first flash [of lightning].

[Pinie und Blitz (1882)

Hoch wuchs ich über Mensch und Tier;
Und sprech' ich—niemand spricht mit mir.
Zu einsam wuchs ich und zu hoch —
Ich warte: worauf wart' ich doch?
Zu nah ist mir der Wolken Sitz,—
Ich warte auf den ersten Blitz.].
eKGWB/NF-1882, 3 [2] — Nachgelassene Fragmente Sommer–Herbst 1882.

Keep in mind the following questions while thinking about Nietzsche’s philosophy.
Partial this is Nietzsche’s response to the ‘crisis’ of modern man and nihilism. Principle
conclusion: all of Nietzsche’s philosophical thought can be seen as his response to the crisis of
Nihilism. What is the essential nature of modern man for Nietzsche can be seen in his
responses to the following questions:

1). Who is Nietzsche’s “modern man”?

2). Who is Nietzsche’s “last man”?
3). Who is Nietzsche’s “overman”?

Note: the use of expression “über Mensch” in this poem of 1882, compared to the most
famous expression that Nietzsche uses the German term: “Übermensch”. The general
German prefix “über” means over, above, and beyond. The German word “mensch” in
English is “human”. So, over, above, and beyond the human. Nietzsche may have known
about the Greek word “hyper-anthropos” (υπεράνθρωπος) which is in the writings of Lucian
of Samosata (125 AD-180 AD, see Mark Causey article). The actual term “Übermensch”. is
used by many authors, example, Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), Novalis (1772-1801),
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) in relation to Faust
Part I, line 490 (see E. Cybulska). See other uses in books read and annotation by Nietzsche
Otto Liebmann’s Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit and Alfred Espinas’s Die Thierischen Gesellschafte
(see Thomas H. Brobjer on all things about Nietzsche’s readings).
118
In addition, in Nietzsche’s favorite America author Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) who
used the term in English the Over-Soul (ninth in the publication Essays, 1841). Nietzsche had a
number of Emerson’s essays translated into German for him and his friends to read.
However, we will leave it this to various pedantic scholars (who Nietzsche hated) to track
down the usage of Übermensch in the German tradition. One example from Nietzsche,
“"The scholar, who really does nothing but 'trundle' books ... finally loses altogether the ability
to think for himself.” (Ecce Homo, Why I am so clever).

If we turn to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) in an attempt to see how much Nietzsche
stole from Emerson, I think from the following passage (in face the only passage) where
Emerson uses the term Over-soul, then we can see most of these ideas would be rejected by
Nietzsche straight away. Here is the passage:

“The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that
which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the
atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's particular being is contained
and made one with all other; that common heart, of which all sincere conversation is the
worship, to which all right action is submission; that overpowering reality which confutes our
tricks and talents, and constrains everyone to pass for what he is, and to speak from his
character, and not from his tongue, and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and
hand, and become wisdom, and virtue, and power, and beauty. We live in succession, in
division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence;
the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE.”
Over-Soul (ninth in the publication of Essays, published in 1841).

The first step in understand Nietzsche theory or doctrine of Übermensch (sometimes

translated as Superman) is to remove the connotations of the Superman movies and cartoons.
To de-construct the images in our heads of the overworked red “S” t-shirts. The second step
is peel back the layers and layers of connotations that have been applied to the term.
Remember some of these are negative connotations and insinuations, and some are with the
movies and cartoons as a great person (note: SuperWomen and SuperMan movies, TV series
or Son of Superman, SuperGirl, etc.). More recently, the transhumanist tradition shows some
general connection to Nietzsche’s doctrines. Of course, there have always been vague
connection to Nietzsche and the eugenic movement in the early 20th century, although the
word eugenics was first used by Francis Galton in 1883 and the eugenic movement was first
started in United Kingdom (see British Eugenics Education Society of 1907 and the American
Eugenics Society of 1921). The notion of eugenics became a worldwide movement. Some
trace this back idea to Plato and his idea of the selective breeding of humans.

119
Breeding.
On the other hand, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to change.” Quote from Charles Darwin. On the physical side of
humans, perhaps the US Navy SEALS are one example.

Translation from German into English “Übermensch”. A number of different translation

have been offered: Alexander Tille as Beyond-Man, Paul Tillich as Beyondman, Thomas
Common translates Superman, Walter Kaufmann as the Overman, Graham Parkes as
Overhuman; or other translation Hyperman or Hyperhuman. Superhuman. Note the use of
the term “übermenschlich” as super strong. The opposite of Übermensch is the last-man
(Letzter Mensch or letzte Mensch). Note: Übermensch* occurs in 153 times in Nietzsche’s
writings that are online as of 2020. Here for example in one line Nietzsche says, “The Birth of
overman.” eKGWB/NF-1882, 4 [25] — Nachgelassene Fragmente November 1882 —
Februar 1883. “Die Geburt der Übermenschen”.

On the topic of the “race”, from a letter Nietzsche wrote to his mother and sister:
“To the enthusiasm for "German nature" I have, of course, brought little, but still less to the
desire to keep this "magnificent" race even pure. On the contrary, on the contrary –“. (BVN-
1885, 581.To Franziska and Elisabeth Nietzsche in Naumburg, Saturday 14. March 1885).
What is Nietzsche great man theory? There is an interesting link to G.W.F. Hegel’s (1770-
1831) great man theory of history. For Hegel and Nietzsche both viewed Napoleon (1769-
1821) as the best example.

Here is a length quote from Nietzsche that clarifies his thinking.

120
 “44.
My notion [concept, Begriff] of genius. - Great men are such great times explosive substances
in which an immense force is accumulated, has been its precondition (Voraussetzung) is
always historically and physiologically, that long for them to collect, heaped, saved and
preserved - that long held no explosion. If the tension into the crowd too large, it is suffices to
most casual charm, the "genius", the "deed" to call the great destiny (Schicksal) in the
world. What is then to environment, at the age where "Zeitgeist" to "public opinion"! - Take
the case of Napoleon. The France of the Revolution, and still more the pre-revolution would
have brought off the opposite type, when Napoleon happens: it also produced him. And
because Napoleon was different, heir to a stronger, longer, older civilization than that which
went into pieces and steam in France, he was the master here; he alone was master here. The
great men are necessary; the period in which they appear is accidental, that they are almost
always the same is master (Lord), only that they are stronger, that they are older, that has been
collected on them longer out. Between a genius and his time there is a relation as between
strong and weak, even as between old and young: the time is still relatively much younger,
thinner, immature, insecure, childish. - That one about it in France today is very
different thinking (in Germany (Deutschland) too: but it is nothing), that there the theory of
the milieu, has become a true neurotic theory, sacrosanct and almost scientific, and to find
among the physiologists believe that “does not smell good," which makes one sad thought. -
It also knows no different in England, but that will grieve no human being. The English are
open only two ways to deal with the genius and the "big man" come to terms, either
democratically in the Buckle's style or religious in the manner of Carlyle. --The danger lies in
people and great times is extraordinary, and the exhaustion of every kind, sterility follows
them on foot. The great man is an end, the big time, the Renaissance, for example, is an
end. The genius - in work, in fact - is necessarily a spendthrift that it expends itself, is its
size...” (Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. Wandering of untimely ones.
Section 44).

From the On the Genealogy of Morals, I1. Section 16). “- think about the problem: Napoleon, this
synthesis of inhuman and superhuman (overman) ... [ — man überlege wohl, was es für ein
Problem ist: Napoleon, diese Synthesis von Unmensch und Übermensch…]. eKGWB/GM-I-
16. Note the use of the two different prefixes in German words here: “Un-“ and “Über-“.

Nietzsche’s high regard for Napoleon.

“Think what you owe to Napoleon: almost all the higher hopes of this century) 2) the lower
species "herd" "mass" "society" unlearned modesty and inflated their needs into cosmic and
metaphysical values.” NF-1887,9[44] —Herbst 1887.

Nietzsche links Napoleon and Christ.

“But they often found the satisfaction of their selfish motives in saying what is forbidden: this
makes the immoral harmless, and therefore it is not abused. In terms of the source, everything
is one: Napoleon and Christ.”
121
eKGWB/NF-1880,4 [109].

Most commentator uses Nietzsche’s praise for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) as
example of whom Nietzsche considered a great man. Gespräche mit Goethe (Conversations with
Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann, 1836, 1848) by Johann Peter Eckermann (1792-1854).
The following is example of one of Nietzsche’s praises for Eckermann’s Conversations with
Goethe.

“109
The treasure of German prose. If one disregards Goethe's writings and especially Goethe's
conversations with Eckermann, the best German book that exists, what is left of German
prose literature that deserves to be read again and again? Lichtenberg's Aphorisms, the first
book of Jung-Stilling's life story, Adalbert Stifter's Nachsommer and Gottfried Keller's People of
Seldwyla, - and that will be the end of it for the time being.” eKGWB/WS-109 —
Menschliches Allzumenschliches II: § WS — 109. Erste Veröff. 18/12/1879.

A second example is a single line in the notebook:

“Eckermann achieves the best prose work of our literature, the highest point of German
humanity.” NF-1879, 42 [45] - July-August 1879.

Although this sounds like Nietzsche is saying that Eckermann was a great writer, in fact, it
through Eckermann that we hear the great mental powers of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832).

Nietzsche names a few more…. from the year 1872.

“Nothing, or at least as little as Beethoven, as Schiller, as Goethe, as all our great artists and
poets. Perhaps it is a law of nature that only the later generations must always become aware
of what heavenly gifts have been given to an earlier one.” (BA-IV - On the future of our
educational institutions: § Lecture IV. Completed about 22/03/1872).

These lectures were not published in Nietzsche’s lifetime, but it is clearly the young
Nietzsche’s had thoughts about the some of the great humans.

In one of his last books, Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche wrote this “51. Goethe was the last
German for whom I have respect (Ehrfurcht)” (Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a
Hammer. Wandering of untimely ones. Section 51).

From a letter Nietzsche wrote to his mother and sister:

“Incidentally, no one lives on whom I would care much; the people whom I like are long, long
dead; e.g., the Abbé Galiani or Henri Beyle or Montaigne.” (BVN-1885, 581. To Franziska
and Elisabeth Nietzsche in Naumburg, Saturday 14. March 1885). Here Nietzsche names
Abbé Galiani or Henri Beyle or Montaigne as some ones worth value and who he would care
much about. Who among the living or dead would you want to set down to supper with?”
122
Nietzsche said, “No, the goal of humanity cannot lie in the end but only in it highest
Exemplaren (examples)”. (Untimely Meditations [Second], “On the Use and Abuse of History for
Life,” 1874, section IX). (The title is some times translated as Unfashionable observations). In
German Nietzsche wrote, „Nein, das Ziel der Menschheit kann nicht am Ende liegen, sondern
nur in ihren höchsten Exemplaren.” (Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen. Zweites Stück. Vom Nutzen und
Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben, section IX).

Eschatology (ἔ σχατος eschatos meaning "last"; and logos, -logy meaning "the study of" logos
λόγος) in the sense of the final destiny of humanity has a Nietzschean ring to it as the end of
humanity; and the Übermensch (Overman) will come. The future and eschatology of
humanity is to give birth to the Übermensch (Overman). Modern man is lacking. We need to
take the next step toward our future – overman.

Nietzsche wrote
“One recognizes the superiority of the Greek man, the Renaissance man - but one would like
to have it without its causes and conditions: the Greeks still lack a deeper insight”. NF-1887,
11 [133] November 1887 - March 1888.

Plus, in addition we have remarks like this:

”The overman: it is not my question what will replace man: what kind of person should be
chosen, wanted, bred as a higher value...

Humanity is not a development for the better; or stronger; or higher; in the sense in which it is
believed today: the European of the nineteenth century, in its value, is far below the European
of the Renaissance…” eKGWB/NF-1887, 11[413].
Thus, the overman is not just Nietzsche re-working nature of the Greek philosopher (non-
Christian) as overman. Although Nietzsche often remarks about the greatness of the
Renaissance man

This next rather long quote lays out Nietzsche clear statement on the ranking of human
species. These comments are all under the heading of:

“Causes of nihilism:
1) the higher species is missing i.e. those whose inexhaustible fertility and power maintain
belief in man. (Think what you owe to Napoleon: almost all higher hopes of this century)
2) the lower species "herd" "mass" "society" unlearns modesty and inflates their needs into
cosmic and metaphysical values. Thereby the whole of existence is vulgarized: if the masses
rule, they tyrannize the exceptions, so that they lose faith in themselves and become nihilists
All attempts to conceive higher types are maneuvered (“romanticism”, the artist, the
philosopher, against Carlyle's attempt to give them the highest moral values).
Resistance to higher type as a result.

123
Decline and uncertainty of all higher types; the struggle against genius ("folk poetry" etc.) pity
the lower and the suffering as a standard for the height of the soul
the philosopher, the interpreter of the deed, and not only the poet, is missing”. eKGWB/NF-
1887,9[44]. 9 = W II 1. Herbst 1887.

Therefore, we ask a straightforward question: Who is Nietzsche’s Übermensch (Overman)?

Nietzsche used the expression, text search: Übermensch* in 153 texts. The most famous place
is Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and
None (1883-1885). Part I, 14 times; Part II, 5 times; Part III, 3 times; and Part IV, 3 times. A
Total of 25 times. The first time in 1870, and finally in Ecce Homo, 6 times. Note the first time
is from 1870 (GMD-1 - The Greek music drama: § [1] Completed about 18/01/1870).
We need a typology of to gather together all of the types of different humans that Nietzsche is
considering. Expression, like the “last human being (letzte Mensch)”.

From 1882, Nietzsche wrote:

“The antithesis of overman is the last human being: I created it at the same time as that.
Everything over human (Übermenschen) appears to humans as illness and insanity. You have
to be a sea to absorb a dirty stream without getting dirty.”
[Der Gegensatz des Übermenschen ist der letzte Mensch: ich schuf ihn zugleich mit jenem.
Alles Übermenschliche erscheint am Menschen als Krankheit und Wahnsinn. Man muß schon
ein Meer sein, um einen schmutzigen Strom in sich aufzunehmen ohne schmutzig zu warden].
eKGWB/NF-1882, 4 [171].

So who is the last man?

Most interpreters say that the “last man” is the Christian herd loving believers in God. For
Nietzsche, the last man is seen as following the morality of sheep. Overall, this is Nietzsche’s
commentary on modern man. All that has repulsed Nietzsche’s astute critical attacks and
counter-attacks against scholars and intellects of all epochs in western and eastern thought as
Nietzsche knew them.

“I call myself the last philosopher because I am the last person. Nobody talks to me as myself,
and my voice comes to me like that of a dying person.”
(eKGWB/NF-1872,19 [131] – Notebook summer 1872 - early 1873).

“The opposite of the overman (Übermenschen) is the last man: I created him at the same time
with that. Everything superhuman appears to man as illness and madness. You have to be a
sea to absorb a dirty stream without getting dirty.”
(eKGWB/NF-1882,4 [171] - Notebook November 1882 - February 1883).

124
“There were still no overman. Naked I saw both, the largest and the smallest man: and I still
found both - all too human!”
[Noch gab es keine Übermenschen. Nackt sah ich Beide, den größten und den kleinsten
Menschen: und Beide fand ich noch — allzumenschlich!].
eKGWB/NF-1883, 10[37].

One of Nietzsche’s published book tiles is called: Human, all too human: a book for free spirits
(Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister (1878).

Some other passages from Nietzsche about the overman:

NF-1882.4 [110]. November 1882 - February 1883.

“I finally loved the overhuman - since then I have endured people. I want to bring them a
new hope! And a new fear - said Zarathustra”

NF-1882.4 [116]. 1882 - February 1883.

“I love all these heavy drops as they fall individually from the dark cloud that contains the
lightning: this lightning is called the overman.”

” I have given mankind the deepest book it possesses, my Zarathustra: I give them shortly
about the most independent. – “. (Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer.
‘Wandering of untimely ones’. Section 51).

Therefore, God must die and overman must come and appear.
“God died: now we want - that the overman live.
Gott starb: nun wollen wir, — dass der Übermensch lebe.”
eKGWB /Za-IV-Menschen-2. Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Thus Spoke
Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885).

Nietzsche’s theory of Übermensch as overman – was only afterwards developed into a

cartoon and a movie series (after 1920s). Nietzsche’s expression was later taken to be a
biologically superior Aryan or Germanic master race. The image was blond eugenics. These
images and corruptions of Nietzsche are still on going. Nevertheless, the question before us is
not what others have done with Nietzsche’s expression (since they did not actual get to his
concept and doctrine); but rather, what did Nietzsche actually say about the Übermensch
(overman). Hermeneutics of text reading. This is a closer reading than re-thinking Nietzsche’s
concept and explicating or expatiation or even elucidation of what might be between the lines
in Nietzsche’s mind. What did Nietzsche have in mind? Work in progress for him and for us.

125
Nietzsche’s Übermensch is of this earth, rather than other-worldliness of Christianity.
Nietzsche’s Übermensch is not someone who is ethically and following the Golden Rule
better than most of the people. Nietzsche’s Übermensch does not believe in a beyond
metaphysical world. From Nietzsche’s

“As the "true world" finally became a fable.

History of an Error.

The "true world" - an idea that is good for nothing, not even obligating - an unnecessary, one
idea, which has become superfluous, consequently a refuted idea: we make it off!
(Bright day, breakfast, return of good sense and cheerfulness; Plato's blushes; pandemonium
of all free spirits.)

We have abolished the true world: what world has remained? The apparent (scheinbare) one
perhaps?... But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent!” (Twilight of the
Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer).

The eternal world or supersensuous realm (God, heaven, eternal soul) of the absolute truth is
gone. In fact, it never really was true – in other words, just a myth or in Nietzsche’s word a
fable. Again consider: the direction of I. Kant on this issue in an important unpublished
essay, What Real Progress has Metaphysics Made in Germany Since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff?,
written in 1793 where Kant defines metaphysics as "the science of advancing by reason from
knowledge of the sensible (Sinnliche) to the knowledge of the supersensuous. (Progress, et. p.
53). German word is Übersinnlichen is the supersensuous (beyond the world of appearances).
What is the Nietzsche’s goal? Thus for Nietzsche man or humanity does not have a goal, but
needs one. This is not an eternal goal of heaven or some kind of an immortal soul
(Kant). Setting goals – is active nihilism? For Nietzsche there is no progress of modern man
(last man). Consider the concept of humanities “progress” as empty and devoid of meaning.

“Not "humanity", but rather overman is the goal! Misunderstanding of Comte!”

[Nicht „Menschheit“, sondern Übermensch ist das Ziel! Mißverständniß bei Comte!].
eKGWB/NF-1884, 26 [232]. See also the Will to Power, #1001, 1884.

Now Nietzsche is ready to lay his own humanity on the line.

“Aim: to reach the overman for a moment. For that I suffer everything! That trinity!”
eKGWB/NF-1882, 4[198]

“I live, so that I know: I want to know that the overman is alive.

We experiment for him! eKGWB/NF-1882, 4[224].

The final eschatology for Nietzsche and the final aim and goal is produce Übermenschen
(overman). The end of humanity is just the rope over the abyss on the way, the bridge to the
Übermenschen (overman).
126
A little bit later 1883, Nietzsche wrote:
There were still no overman. Naked I saw both, the largest and the smallest man: and I still
found both - all too human!

[Noch gab es keine Übermenschen. Nackt sah ich Beide, den größten und den kleinsten
Menschen: und Beide fand ich noch — allzumenschlich!].
eKGWB/NF-1883, 10[37]

The higher type is hereby defined by Nietzsche.

“(150). The necessity to prove that a counter-movement belongs to an ever more economical
consumption of man and humanity, to an ever more rigidly interwoven "machinery" of
interests and achievements. I call it the excretion of a luxury surplus of humanity: in it, a
stronger species, a higher type, is to appear, which has different conditions of origin and
conservation than the average human. My term, my parable for this type, is, as you know, the
word "overman".” eKGWB/NF-1887, 10[17]

After a long list of aphorisms mentioning the overman in 1882, we come to this one:
“385. The love of the overman is the remedy for the pity of man: in the latter, mankind would
soon perish.”
[385. Die Liebe zum Übermenschen ist das Heilmittel gegen das Mitleid mit den Menschen:
an letzterem müßte die Menschheit sehr schnell zu Grunde gehen]
eKGWB/NF-1882, 3 [1].

“Therefore, it is not just the last man that will be gone and perish; but humankind must perish
and be remove from earth. The meaning of the earth is not humanity and the last man; but
rather on the bridge and on the way to the new type, namely, the overman.”
In Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and
None (1883-1885).

We find the following pronouncements:

In Preface 3. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885).
“When Zarathustra came to the next town, which lies in the woods, he found there a great
number of people assembled in the market: for it had been promised that a tightrope walker
should be seen. And Zarathustra thus spoke to the people:
I teach you the overman. Man is something to be overcome. What have you done to
overcome him?

So far, all beings have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the low tide
of this great flood, and rather go back to the animal than overcome man?
What is the monkey for humans? A laughter or a painful shame. And that is what man should
be for the overman: a laughter or a painful shame.
You have made the path from worm to man, and much is still worm in you. Once upon a
time you monkeys, and even now man is more monkey than any monkey.
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But whoever is the wisest of you, is also only a dichotomy and hybrid of plant and ghost. But
am I going to turn you into ghosts or plants?
See, I teach you the Overman!

The overman is the meaning of the earth. Your will say: Overman is the meaning of the earth!
I implore you, my brethren, to remain faithful to the earth and not to believe those who speak
of supernatural hopes! It's poisoners, whether they know it or not.

They are the despisers of life, dying and poisoned, whose earth is weary: that is how they may
go!

The outrage of God was once the greatest sacrilege, but God died, and with it those wicked
ones died. To dishonor the earth is now the most terrible and the guts of the unknowable to
respect more than the meaning of the earth!
At one time, the soul looked scornfully on the body: and then this contempt was the highest: -
soul wanted him meager, ghastly, starved to death. So, soul thought to escape him and the
earth.
Oh, that soul itself was still thin, dreadful and starving: and cruelty was the lust of this soul!
But you too, my brethren, say to me, what does your body say about your soul? Is not your
soul poverty and filth and pitiful comfort?

Truly, a dirty stream is man. You have to be a sea to be able to pick up a dirty stream without
becoming impure.

Behold, I teach you the Overman: that is this sea, in it may your great contempt go under.”
eKGWB/Za-I-Vorrede-3. Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Thus Spoke
Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885), Preface 3.

In Preface 4. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885).

“But Zarathustra looked at the people and wondered. Then he spoke:

Man is a rope, knotted between animal and overman, a rope over a precipice.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous look back, a dangerous shudder
and a halt.
What is great about man is that he is a bridge and not a purpose: what can be loved in man is
that he is a transition and a downfall.
I love those who do not know to live unless they are going down, because they are the ones
passing by.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great worshipers and arrows of yearning for the
other shore.
I love those who do not seek a reason behind the stars to perish and be victims: but who
sacrifice themselves to the earth that the earth will once become the overman.

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I love Him who lives, that he may know, and that he will know, that the Overman may once
live. And so he wants his downfall.
I love him who works and invents, that he builds the house for the overman, and prepares
earth, animal and plant for him: for thus he wants his downfall.”
eKGWB/Za-I-Vorrede -4. Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Thus Spoke
Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885), Preface 4.

In Preface 5. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885).
Za-I preface-5 - Thus Spoke Zarathustra I: preface, § 5.
“So we give you the overman! "And all the people cheered and clucked their tongues. But
Zarathustra became sad and said to his heart, "You do not understand me: I am not the
mouth for these ears.

In Preface 7. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885).
“I want to teach people the meaning of their being: which is the overman, the lightning from
the dark cloud man.
But I am still far from them, and my meaning does not speak to their senses. I am still a
middle man between a fool and a corpse.” eKGWB/Za-I-Vorrede -7. Also sprach Zarathustra:
Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885),
Preface 7.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885), Preface 9.
“I want to join the creators, the harvesters and the revelers: I want to show them the rainbow
and all the stairs of the Overman. I will sing my song to the hermits and the two-settlers; and
who still has ears for the unheard of, I will make his heart heavy with my fortune. I want my
goal, I go my way; I'll jump over the hesitant and the frustrated.”

In Preface 9. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885).
“I want to join the creators, the harvesters and the revelers: I want to show them the rainbow
and all the stairs of the overman. I will sing my song to the hermits and the two-settlers; and
who still has ears for the unheard of, I will make his heart heavy with my fortune. I want my
goal, I go my way; I'll jump over the hesitant and the frustrated.”

From On the gift-giving virtue. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885).
“And this is the great noon, when man stands in the middle of his path between animal and
overman and celebrates his way to the evenings as his highest hope: for it is the way to a new
morning.
Then the deceased will bless himself that he is a transient; and the sun of his knowledge will
stand in his midst.

"Dead are all gods: now we want the overman to live." - This was once our last will on the
greatest (grossen) noon! –“ Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885), On
the gift-giving virtue.
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From On Priest. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885),
“Never was there an overman. Naked I saw both, the largest and the smallest man: All too
similar, they are still each other. Truly, I also found the greatest - all too human!”
From The Convalescent. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885).
“I will come back, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this snake - not to a new
life or better life or similar life:
- I come again eternally to this same and same life, in the greatest and also in the smallest, that
I again teach all things eternal return, -
- that I again speak the word of the great earth and man's midday, that I again announce man
to the overman.” Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885), The
Convalescent.

At the end of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the last use of the term “Übermenschen” in the book, we
come to the section On the Higher Men (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None
(1883-1885).

“Before God! But now this god died! Your higher man, this God was your greatest danger.
Since he lies in the grave, you are only resurrected. Only now comes the big noon, only now
will the higher man - ruler!
Do you understand this word, oh my brothers? You are frightened: is your heart dizzy? Is the
abyss gaping here? Do you yell the hellhound here?
Well! Arise! Your higher man! Only now does the mountain circle the future of mankind. God
died: now we want - that the Overman live.”

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885), section On the Higher Men.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra I: Of the despisers of the body.
You are not bridges to the Overman ! - Thus Spoke Zarathustra. * * *

Thus Spoke Zarathustra I: Of the pale criminal.

Your sadness is love for the Overman: so you justify your still-life! You should say "enemy" but
not "villain"; "Sick," you should say, but not "scoundrel"; "Thor," you should say, but not
"sinner."

From “On the New Idol” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra we find:

“Do not you see him, the rainbow and the bridges of the Overrman ? - Thus Spoke
Zarathustra. * * *”
“There, where the state ends, there begins only the man who is not superfluous: there begins
the song of the necessary, the unique and irreplaceable way.
Wherever the state ends, - look at it, my brothers! Do not you see him, the rainbow and the
bridges of the Overman? – “ Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885), On
the New Idol. [Dort, wo der Staat aufhört, — so seht mir doch hin, meine Brüder! Seht ihr
ihn nicht, den Regenbogen und die Brücken des Übermenschen?].
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Nietzsche wrote in a letter (1883) the following:
“By the way, as far as "the state" is concerned, I know what I know. Let me be counted
among the "anarchists," if you will offend me; but it is certain that I foresee immense
European anarchies and earthquakes. All movements lead there - your anti-Jewish included.
Seen from a distance, "anti-Semitism" looks very much like the struggle against the rich and
the old ways of getting rich.”
Forgiveness! How do I get politicized!”
eKGWB/BVN-1883, 399 — Letter Brief AN Ernst Schmeitzner: 02/04/1883.

Before one gets carried away that Nietzsche is some kind of “anarchist” the term in the texts
“anarchist*” occurs in 38 texts. One example of his remarks, “The Christian and the anarchist
- both are décadents.”eKGWB/GD-Streifzuege-34

Therefore, Nietzsche’s remarks are generally against “anarchists”; but like many of Nietzsche’s
concepts, there is plenty of grey space about the overall gist of his position. Clearly, the “state”
supports Christian and more important for Nietzsche the overall Christian’s morality.
Therefore, the end of the “state” is part of the overall Nietzsche’s program, but not as part of
the socialism involved in the anarchist movement of the late 1800s. Nietzsche often re-read
Friedrich Albert Lange (1828-1875) History of Materialism (Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik
seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart, 1866). Lange writes of anarchism and Max Stirner (1806-1856)
philosophy. Although even Kant wrote something about anarchism (28 times in the
Akademieausgabe komplett (Bände 1–23); but it is not widely known even now and certainly
Nietzsche would not have known about Kant’s remarks. Noteworthy, Nietzsche had one
thing to say about the great and famous Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876, whom
Karl Marx fought with over the direction and purpose of the International Workingmen's
Association (IWA), the so-called “First International”),

Nietzsche wrote:
“Bakunin, who wants to destroy in hatred the present, the history and the past. To eradicate
all past, it would of course be necessary to destroy the people; but he only wants to destroy
the previous education, the whole intellectual life. The new generation should find their new
culture:
Man is only worth the art he creates.”
(eKGWB/NF-1873, 26[14]. Frühjahr 1873).

About the nature of the “state“; Nietzsche said,

"State means the coldest of all cold monsters. Cold lies it too; and this lie creeps out of his
mouth: "I, the state, am the people". (Za-I-Goetzen - Thus spoke Zarathustra I: Of the new idol.
1883).

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[Staat heisst das kälteste aller kalten Ungeheuer. Kalt lügt es auch; und diese Lüge kriecht aus
seinem Munde: "Ich, der Staat, bin das Volk”.]. (Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und
Keinen, Za-I-Goetzen). Za-I friend - Thus Spoke Zarathustra I: From friend.

“You cannot clean yourself nice enough for your friend: for you should be an arrow to him
and a longing for the Overman. Did you already see your friend sleeping - so you can see what
he looks like? What else is your friend's face? It is your own face, on a rough and imperfect
mirror.” Za-I love of the neighbor - Thus Spoke Zarathustra I: Of the charity.

“The friend is to you the feast of the earth and an anticipation of the Overman. I teach you the
friend and his overflowing heart. But you have to understand being a sponge, if you want to
be loved by overflowing hearts. I teach you the friend, in which the world is finished, a bowl
of the good, - the creative friend, who always has a finished world to give away.

The future and the farthest to you is the cause of your today: in your friend you should love
the Overman as your cause. My brothers, I do not advise you to charity: I advise you to the
most far-fetched love. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. * * *” Za-I-Woman - So Zarathustra I spoke: Of
old and young woman.

“Your hope is, "May I give birth to the Overman !" In your love be bravery! With your love,
you should go on the one who gives you fear! In your love be your honor! Little else
understands the woman on honor.” Za-I child - Thus Spoke Zarathustra I: Of child and marriage.

“Bitterness is also in the cup of the best love: so it makes longing for Overman, so it thirsts you,
the creator! Thirsty to the creator, arrow and yearning for the Overman: say, my brother, is this
your will to marry? Holy means me such a will and such marriage. - Thus Spoke Zarathustra.”
Za-I-Virtue-2 - Thus Spoke Zarathustra I: Of the gift-giving virtue. 2nd.

“You loners of today, you departing ones, you shall one day be a people: out of you, who
chose yourselves, shall a chosen people grow up: - and from him the Overman. Truly, a place of
recovery is yet to become the earth! And already there is a new smell around her, a salvific, -
and a new hope! * * *” Za-I-Virtue-3 - Thus Spoke Zarathustra I: Of the gift-giving virtue. 3rd

“And this is the great noon, when man stands in the middle of his path between animal
and Overman and celebrates his way to the evenings as his highest hope: for it is the way to a
new morning. Then the deceased will bless himself that he is a transient; and the sun of his
knowledge will stand in his midst.

"Dead are all gods: now we want the Overman to live." - This was once our last will on the big
noon! - Thus Spoke Zarathustra. * * *” –- Thus Spoke Zarathustra I: First part, On the
Bestowing Virtue, section 3.

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Nietzsche’s last book that he wrote from 15 October 1888 to 4 November 1888 just several
months before he stops writing all together (January 1889). It was published after his death, it
was his indescribable (perhaps self-apotheosis, ἀ ποθέωσις) autobiography. His last lines as he
signed the book were: “Dionysus versus the Crucified” The title of the book is:
Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908), Ecce
homo: Warum ich so klug bin, book 1).

Here we find his final discussion of the overman doctrine.

“Zarathustra leaves no doubt here: he says that it was precisely the knowledge of the good, the
"best", which had horrified him before man; for this reluctance are the wings match for him,
"fortzuschweben in the distant future," - he does not hide the fact that his type of man, a
relatively superhuman type, especially in relation to the good superhuman is that the good and just
his overrman called Devil would you ... your highest man, whom my eye met, that is my doubt
to you and my secret laughter: I guess you would call my Overman - devil! “ EH Destiny 5 -
Ecce homo: Why I'm a destiny, § 5.

“The word "overman" to designate a type of highest well-being (Wohlgerathenheit), in

contrast to "modern" people, to "good" people, to Christians and other nihilists - a word that
in the mouth of a Zarathustra, the exterminator of morality, a very thoughtful word almost
everywhere, innocence has been understood in the sense of that value whose antithesis has
been manifested in the figure of Zarathustra, that is, as an "idealistic" type of a higher kind of
man, half "saint", half "genius" …” (Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888,
first edition published in 1908), book 1, eKGWB/EH-Bücher-1).
“ EH-ZA-6 - Ecce homo: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, § 6.

“Here man is overcome at every moment, the concept of “overrman" has become the highest
reality here, - in an infinite distance everything that hitherto had been called great in man lies
under him.” EH-ZA-8 - Ecce homo: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, § 8

“I want to finish it, for a shadow came to me - of all things the quietest and lightest thing ever
came to me! The superhuman beauty came to me as a shadow: what are you to me still - the
gods! ... I emphasize one last point: the underlined verse gives the reason for this. For a
Dionysian task, the hardness of the hammer, the desire to annihilate, is a decisive
precondition.” EH-ZA-8 - Ecce homo: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, § 8

Nietzsche collapses some metaphysics distinction in his statements about to overman.

1) Overman is the meaning of the earth.
2) Overman shall (sei) be the meaning of the earth.
Thus Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885). (Prologue Section 3)

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In German, Nietzsche said, “Der Übermensch ist der Sinn der Erde. Euer Wille sage: der
Übermensch sei der Sinn der Erde!” Also sprach Zarathustra I: Vorrede, § 3. Thus Spoke
Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885), Preface 3.

Perhaps a new kind of language for expression both.

So this is confused: The overman is, or shall, or will be, or might be the meaning of the
earth. Nietzsche is not giving us a metaphysical description or an empirical statement. This is
not anthropology. Nietzsche sometimes burdens us with conceptual over determining his
concept. He creates new concepts. No more of those concept-mummies.

Nietzsche said,
“What dawns on philosophers last of all: They must no longer accept concepts as a gift, nor
merely purify and polish them, but first make and create them, present them and make them
convincing.” (Will to Power, 409, 1885, 1885, 11: 34 [195],). (see Twilight of the idols, the section
“Reason” in Philosophy”).

What kind of a concept is Nietzsche giving us to express “overman”? Is this just a re-bake of
his earlier “überhistorischen Menschen” [see example, eKGWB/HL-1]? Answer: Nietzsche
thinks that man is defined as the supra-historical man.
Nietzsche’s
1) Overman is a gift
2) Man shall be overcome
3) Overman is the sea, so that your great contempt can go under.
4) Overman is lightning.
5) Man needs to set a goal.
6) Man needs to give birth to a dancing star.
7) To create beyond yourselves.
8) Sun coming out of dark mountains.

Does the overman give value to this world? Is that why without the overman there is no value
to life? Life is valueless without the overman. Can we revalue or just devalue the world – how
can we do either? The world has no value by itself. This is not the thing-in-itself. By
translating the world, the overman creates an all new value system. Heidegger sees value-
philosophy as value metaphysics – he rejected this in the early 1920s. How can things (beings)
not have any value?

Nietzsche in the winter of 1882-1883 wrote a single line in his notebooks “Die Geburt der
Übermenschen”, The birth of the overman.” By the fall of 1883 the expression of
“Übermenschen” is used a lot in the notebooks. It becomes central in one of his most
famous books: Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A
Book for All and None (1883-1885). Nietzsche started writing this work in January of 1883.
What is the overman not according to Heidegger?

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The overman is not:
1) super dimensional
2) sheer caprice of law
3) titanic rage the rule
4) unbridled and degenerate imagination rushing headlong into the void
5) cannot find it through analysis of modern age
6) chief functionaries of the will’s various organization forms
7) the transcendent ideal
8) blond beast
9) application of Nietzsche’s practical philosophy
10) frenzy self-will

An early note from 1873,

“With the foundation of the supra-historical man (überhistorischen Menschen), who does not
see salvation in the process, but in every man and every experience, and again in every lived
period, in every day, every hour, to know what life is meant to do: so that for him the world is
finished in every single moment and reaches its end.” NF-1873, 30 [2] - Autumn 1873 -
Winter 1873-74.

Notice the connection with the eternal return of the same as a doctrine of time and
temporality.

So, we are not waiting on history for the overman to appear, but rather, we are waiting on the
right conditions and right events for the overman to appear on earth or perhaps the overman
has already appeared.

Where the state ceases (aufhört) there is the rainbow and bridges to the overman. Why the
attack on the state by Nietzsche? This almost sounds like Karl Marx (actually written by
Friedrich Engels), that the state shall whither away. In the meantime, we have the trans-
national corporations, so in essence the nation-states are much less.

Why any progression for humanity?

Indeed, the general question needs to be asked. Why any progression for humanity? What are
the Eschatological (ἔ σχατος) or even teleological issues for the human? Of course, for
Nietzsche this means: minus any version of Christianity. Or, the Major and Minor Signs.
Selbstüberwindung (self-overcoming) of mere human.

135
 Martin Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche’s
doctrine of the overman: a very short introduction
Heidegger complained to his friends that Nietzsche kaput him, he actually said, “Er hat mich
kaputt gemacht!” in English, “Nietzsche kaput me!” (broke me)”. In his letter to Medard Boss
dated August 16, 1960, he says “I am still stuck in the “abyss” of Nietzsche.” He must have
been working on his two-volume set on Nietzsche which was finally published in 1961; at this
point I hesitate to call them books. These two volumes are re-writing by Heidegger of his
lectures on Nietzsche dating from the 1930s at the University of Freiberg. Accord to his friend
and student Hans-Georg Gadamer; Elfrida Heidegger (wife) was very concerned about Martin
having another mental breakdown; so she asked Otto Pöggeler who was helping edited the
volumes, to stop working on his two-volume study of Nietzsche. These autobiographical
statements by Heidegger show his ongoing engagement (Auseinandersetzung) and struggle
and fight with Nietzsche’s critical stance. Heidegger in 1937 said, “to dare to come to grips
with Nietzsche as the one who is nearest but to recognize that he is farthest removed from the
question of Being.”

Martin Heidegger’s particularly early reading of Nietzsche is evident in the following quote
from the year 1910 (Heidegger’s age, 21). Maybe this is the first time Heidegger writes about
the “overman” in his written publications.

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Heidegger wrote:
Chapter Two. PER MORTEM AD VITAM
“Thoughts on Johannes Jörgensen’s Lies of Life and Truth of Life (1910)
Oscar Wilde the dandy, Paul Verlaine the “brilliant drunkard,” Maxim Gorky the great
vagabond, the Overman Nietzsche—all interesting people. And when in the hour of grace one
of these interesting people becomes conscious of the great lie of his gypsy’s life, smashes the
altars of false gods, and becomes a Christian, then they call this “tasteless, revolting. As you
read the following quotes from Heidegger you can see as his positions are more Heidegger’s
attacks of against Nietzsche; and of course the language is more infused with Heidegger’s
notions (especially, the will and will-to-willing).

Here is larger number of Heidegger quotes with the years listed with the publications. This
should give the reader some general ideas of Heidegger critical encounter and attacks
(Auseinandersetzung) with regard to Nietzsche’s doctrine of the overman. Needless to say,
this could be a topic for full-length books and/or doctoral dissertations. These are quoted
here to give the reader a first impression of Heidegger’s Auseinandersetzung with Nietzsche
doctrine of the overman. I would claim from the amounts of quotes and reference to
Nietzsche from 1910 until in the 1970s, Heidegger is in constant engagement with Nietzsche.
Although there are only a few references to Nietzsche in Heidegger first major work (some
may say his best work) David Farrell Krell has argued that Heidegger was still “seeing”
Nietzsche while he was writing Being and Time (1927). Heidegger was not a Nietzscheian in the
sense of taking over Nietzsche’s views and doctrine; but rather, in Heidegger’s singular
struggle (Kampf) to obtain his own path. This maybe how it only “seems” to us from the
outside, Heidegger most likely would not agree with how we see Heidegger at this point in our
historical understanding of Heidegger. Heidegger himself has said that we are too close to
Nietzsche and it takes 200+ years to understanding philosophers and thinkers. Some of
Heidegger’s writing have yet to appear even in German and only a fraction of the 30,000+
letters have been published (by 2020). Given his unique use of the German language, many of
writings are difficult to understand as the writings come across into English. Moreover,
Heidegger’s use of the German language is difficult in German too.

Heidegger wrote, “In terms of the history of beyng, however, the essence of the human being
is different. It essentially surpasses all the loftiness of the overman and yet includes an
essential indigence which of course has nothing to do with the wretchedness of the sinful
human being of metaphysics. The event-related nobility and event-related indigence of
historical humanity are the same.” (§235 [213–214] 183. The Event. (GA 71 Das Ereignis
(1941/42).

137
“Experiences that being human as belonging within the reality determined in its entirety by the
will to power, is determined by a form of man's essence that goes beyond and surpasses man
hitherto. The name for this form of man's essence that surpasses the race of men up to now is
"overman." By this name, Nietzsche does not mean any isolated exemplar of man in whom
the abilities and purposes of man as ordinarily known are magnified and enhanced to gigantic
proportions. "Overman" is also not that form of man that first originates upon the path of the
practical application of Nietzsche's philosophy to life. The name "overman" designates the
essence of humanity, which, as modern humanity, is beginning to enter into the
consummation belonging to the essence of its age. "Overman" is man who is man from out of
the reality determined through the will to power, and for that reality. Man whose essence is
that essence which is willing, i.e., ready, from out of the will to power is overman. The willing
that characterizes the essence of man that is willing in this way must correspond to the will to
power as to the Being (Sein) of whatever is.

Therefore, simultaneously with the thinking that thinks the will to power, there necessarily
arises the question: In what form must the essence of man that becomes willing from out of
the Being of what is, present itself and unfold, in order that it may be adequate to the will to
power and may thus be capable of receiving dominion over all that is?”
(Die Frage nach der Technik (1949), The Question Concerning Technology, in GA 7 Vorträge und
Aufsätze. 1936-53.), page 96).

A long quote from Heidegger,

“Has man hitherto sufficiently considered in what mode the Being of what is has meanwhile
appeared? Has man hitherto assured himself as to whether his essence has the maturity and
strength to correspond to the claim of that Being? Or does man hitherto simply get along with
the help of expedients and detours that drive him away ever anew from experiencing that
which is? Man hitherto would like to remain man hitherto; and yet he is at the same time
already the one who, of all that is, is willing whose Being is beginning to appear as the will to
power. Man hitherto is, in his essence, not yet at all prepared for Being, which all the while has
been holding complete sway over what is. In the latter there rules the necessity that man go
beyond man hitherto, not out of mere desire or mere arbitrariness, but solely for the sake of
Being.

138
Nietzsche's thought that thinks overman arises from the thinking that thinks whatever is
ontologically as what is in being, and it thus accommodates itself to the essence of
metaphysics, yet without being able to experience that essence from within metaphysics. For
this reason, the respect in which the essence of man is determined from out of the essence of
Being remains concealed for Nietzsche, just as it does in all metaphysics before him.

Therefore, the ground of the essential connection between the will to power and the essence
of overman necessarily veils itself in Nietzsche's metaphysics. Yet in every veiling there already
rules simultaneously an appearing. The existentia that belongs to the essentia of whatever is,
i.e., to the will to power, is the eternal returning of the same. The Being that is thought in that
returning contains the relation to the essence of overman. But this relation necessarily remains
unthought in its essence as that essence relates to Being. It thus remains obscure even to
Nietzsche himself what connection the thinking that thinks overman in the figure of
Zarathustra has with the essence of metaphysics.”
(The Word of Nietzsche (Nietzsches Wort 'Gott ist tot' (1943). The Word of Nietzsche: 'God Is Dead', in
GA 5 Holzwege. 1935-46. Off the Beaten Track., page 97).

“…together with Schelling's Investigations on the Essence of Human Freedom (1809)-and that
means at the same time also with Hegel's work The Phenomenology of Mind (1807), and also with
the Monadology (1714) of Leibniz-and only when it is brought into the situation of thinking
these works not only metaphysically but from out of the essence of metaphysics will there be
established the right and duty as well as the foundation and horizon for an explication.
It is easy but irresponsible to be indignant at the idea and figure of overman, which has
clothed itself in the very misunderstanding that attaches to it, and to make this indignation
pass for a refutation. It is difficult, but for future thinking it will be inescapable, to attain to the
high responsibility out of which Nietzsche pondered the essence of that humanity which, in
the destining of Being as the will to power, is being determined toward the assuming of
dominion over the earth. The essence of overman is no license for the frenzy of self-will. It is
the law grounded in Being itself of a long chain of the highest of self-conquests that are first
making man mature for that which is, which, as that which is, belongs to Being-to Being that,
as the will to power, is bringing to appearance its essence as will, and through that appearing is
making an epoch, namely, the ultimate epoch of metaphysics.”
(The Question Concerning Technology (Die Frage nach der Technik (1949), The Question Concerning
Technology, in GA 7 Vorträge und Aufsätze. 1936-53.), page 98).

139
“When God and the gods are dead in the sense of the metaphysical experience just elucidated,
and when the will to power is deliberately willed as the principle of all positing of the
conditions governing whatever is, i.e., as the principle of value positing, then dominion over
that which is as such, in the form of dominion over the earth, passes to the new willing of
man determined by the will to power. Nietzsche closes the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra,
which appeared one year after The Gay Science, in 1883, with the statement : "Dead are all gods:
now we will that overman live.”
(The Word of Nietzsche (Nietzsches Wort 'Gott ist tot' (1943). in GA 5 Holzwege. 1935-46. Off the
Beaten Track., page 99).

“That place of God can remain empty. Instead of it, another, i.e., a place corresponding
metaphysically, can loom on the horizon-a place that is identical neither with the essential
realm belonging to God nor with that of man, but with which man comes once more into a
distinctive relationship. Overman never enters at all into the place of God; rather the place
into which his willing enters is another realm belonging to another grounding of what is, in its
other Being. This other Being of what is, meanwhile-and this marks the beginning of modern
metaphysics-has become subjectness.
(The Question Concerning Technology (Die Frage nach der Technik (1949), The Question Concerning
Technology, in GA 7 Vorträge und Aufsätze. 1936-53.), page 100).

“The only two developments of the final Occidental metaphysics in Nietzsche that struggle
toward the completion of modernity and are worthy of attention are O. Spengler's Caesarist's
metaphysics of history and E. Junger's metaphysics of "the worker". The former thinks in the
perspective of man as a "predator" and sees the ongoing completion and the end in the
domination of "Caesars" to whom the masses have become serviceable through economy,
technicity and World Wars. The latter thinks planetarily [G28] (not economically, not
societally, not "politically") the gestalt of the "worker" in whom the modern humanity
becomes a permanent member of the "organic construction" of 'beings in the whole'.
However, neither Spengler's nor lunger's thought should be confined to words like "Caesar"
and "the worker" - words with which Spengler and Jiinger having great individuals in mind,
seek to capture the ownmost of the overman, that is, the henceforth determined animal. (GA
66 Besinnung (1940/39), Mindfulness, page 21).

“The overman is not a fairy-tale character; he is the one who recognizes

the last man as such and who overcomes him.”
Heidegger’s lecture, “Eternal return of the same”, e.t. p34.

140
“Yet whence arises the urgent cry for the overman? Why does prior humanity no longer
suffice? Because Nietzsche recognizes the historic moment in which man takes it on himself
to assume dominion over the earth as a whole. Nietzsche is the first thinker to pose the
decisive question concerning the phase of world history that is emerging only now, the first to
think the question through in its metaphysical implications. The question asks: Is man, in his
essence as man heretofore, prepared to assume dominion over the earth?” Who Is Nietzsche's
Zarathustra? e.t. page 215.

General remarks on Heidegger’s Critique of

Nietzsche’s Overman.
Heidegger sees Nietzsche overman as being trapped in the metaphysic as the last Western
metaphysician (Heidegger’s claimed discussed in other chapters), who thinks human and the
overman as will and man as homo animal rationale. (For example, Heidegger writes in 1927,
Being and Time, 48: “Man…Interpreted to mean an animal rationale, something living which
has reason. But the kind of Being which belongs to is understood in the sense of occurring
and Being-present-at-hand.”). Overman as willing of the will to power; therefore, it is modern
metaphysical thinking. The Overman lives after the metaphysical (onto-theo-logical) God is
dead (the super-sensuous as an idea has disappeared). God is dead and now the Overman
lives. However, Heidegger does not see Nietzsche as leading the way out of metaphysics
(certainly, there is evidence that Nietzsche and Marx before him lead the way out of traditional
western metaphysics). The claim is that only Martin Heidegger has a true path out of
metaphysics. Although Heidegger gives Nietzsche no credit for attempting to overcome (flips
metaphysics out of the eternal program) metaphysics. Heidegger only gives Nietzsche credit
for the final end result of reversing Platonism. Platonism conceived by Heidegger as the first
beginning (Anfang) of metaphysics; hence Nietzsche as the final end point of the 2000-year
history of metaphysics; and hence the final reversal of the metaphysical super-sensuous
(eternal beyond appearances, Plato’s forms) to just the appearances. Alternatively, one might
say the empirical perceptions of sensuous of appearance only (no abstract forms of the eternal
perfect Triangle via Plato). Phaedo forms as eternal (79d2) All metaphysical thinking of humans
as homo animal rationale. Heidegger thinks of human as Da-Sein as being in the open and
clearing of Being (Sein). An animal with reason.

Obviously, this all a shorten and partial description of Heidegger’s and Nietzsche’s thinking
on the Overman.

We can say that Nietzsche’s Overman is the “who”, who can stand in place after return of the
Same breaks human history in to Two parts (before and then after; or Nietzsche as the
breaking point). Nietzsche splits history in two parts. However, this formulation almost says
too much.

141
Heidegger ties Nietzsche’s Overman to Nietzsche doctrine of the will as will to willing; and
then hence, to the great metaphysical concept of will (started with Kant, for sure). The
concept of the “will” hit the high point in Arthur Schopenhauer’s (1788-1860), World as Will
and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 1818/1819).

Conclusion.
Can we think the Overman as a stand-alone doctrine without the metaphysical overtone
(underlying and providing a framework or – not)?
Nietzsche’s Overman thought of as…
1). Better humanity
2). Super individual (Neapolitan, Goethe, Reinhold Messner).
3). Humanity’s hero
4). The old superman of the T.V. and the movies

Natural breeding versus selective controls. Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune the sisterhood
called the Bene Gesserit have “manipulated bloodlines for generations”.
Alternatively, --- Star Trek’s the "Augments", genetically enhanced humans [supposedly, the
“Nielsen ratings, 2.1 percent of the population of the United States watch some of these
episodes” (Wikipedia)]. In other words, humans who have been genetically improved, in a
word and the basic idea is called: “Eugenics”. Recently a Chinese scientist and the Russians
say that have ‘edited’ baby humans to be Immune to HIV. Said to have used CRISPR
(clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) to edit the genes. Is this the end of
humanity or the beginning of the long future toward a “new” kind of humanity? Is
Nietzsche’s overman just the new humans after the end of Christian morality? Nietzsche’s
overman lives only after the end of Nihilism?

Nietzsche wrote,
“This man of the future will redeem us, not just from the ideal held up till now, but also from
those things which had to arise from it, from the great nausea, the will to nothingness, from
nihilism, that stroke of midday and of great decision that makes the will free again, which
gives earth its purpose and man his hope again, this Antichrist and anti-nihilist, this conqueror
of God and of nothingness – he must come one day ...” (translation by Carol Diethe). Zur
Genealogie der Moral [On the Genealogy of Morals, II. Section 24).

“This man of the future, who will free us from the previous ideal as well as from what had to
grow out of him, from great disgust, from will to nothing, from nihilism, this midday chime
and the great decision that frees the will again who gives back their goal to the earth and their
hope to man, this antichrist and antinihilist, this conqueror of God and nothing - he must
come one day .... “Zur Genealogie der Moral [On the Genealogy of Morals, II. Section 24).

142
[Dieser Mensch der Zukunft, der uns ebenso vom bisherigen Ideal erlösen wird, als von dem,
was aus ihm wachsen musste, vom grossen Ekel, vom Willen zum Nichts, vom Nihilismus,
dieser Glockenschlag des Mittags und der grossen Entscheidung, der den Willen wieder frei
macht, der der Erde ihr Ziel und dem Menschen seine Hoffnung zurückgiebt, dieser
Antichrist und Antinihilist, dieser Besieger Gottes und des Nichts — er muss einst
kommen…]. Zur Genealogie der Moral. Essay II, section 24. eKGWB /GM-II-24.

Bibliography on Nihilism and Nietzsche

Nietzsche’s published works in German and English.

Die Geburt der Traöbdie The Birth of Tragedy

The Future of Our Educational
Die Zukunft unserer
Instituions
Bildungsanstalten

Unzeitgemösse Betrachtungen Thoughts out of Season (or

Untimely Meditations)
Menschliches, Allzumenschliches Human, All-Too-Human
Morgenröte The Dawn of Day [Daybreak]
The Joyful Wisdom [Gay
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft
Science]
Also sprach Zarathustra Thus Spake Zarathustra
Jenseits von Gut und Böse Beyond Good and Evil
Zur Genealogie der Moral The Genealogy of Morals
Der Fall Wagner The Case of Wagner
Götzen-Dömmerung Twilight of the Idols
Der Antichrist The Antichrist
Ecce Homo Ecce Homo
Nietzsche contra Wagner
Nietzsche contra Wagner

143
Standard List of Nietzsche’s writing and abbreviations
A = The Antichrist: Curse on Christianity
AOM = Assorted Opinions and Maxims
BGE = Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
BT = The Birth of Tragedy
CW = The Case of Wagner
D = Daybreak/Dawn (**translator note, should be Dawn - Thoughts on moral prejudice)
DD = Dionysian Dithyrambs
DS = David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer
EH = Ecce Homo (sections abbreviated "Wise," "Clever," "Books," "Destiny;" abbreviations
for titles discussed in "Books" are indicated instead of "Books" where relevant)
FEI = "On the Future of Our Educational Institutions"
GM = On the Genealogy of Morality (1887). /Morals
GOA = Nietzsches Werke (Grossoktavausgabe)
GS = The Gay Science
GSt = "The Greek State"
HC = "Homer's Contest"
HCP = "Homer and Classical Philology"
HH = Human, All Too Human
HL = "On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life"
IM = "Idylls from Messina"
KGB = Briefwechsel: Kritische Gesamtausgabe
KGW = Kritische Gesamtausgabe
KSA = Kritische Studienausgabe
KSB = Sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe
LR = "Lectures on Rhetoric"
MA = Nietzsches Gesammelte Werke (Musarionausgabe)
NCW = Nietzsche Contra Wagner
PN = Portable Nietzsche
PPP = Pre-Platonic Philosophers
PT = Philosophy and Truth
PTAG = Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
RWB = Richard Wagner in Bayreuth
SE = "Schopenhauer as Educator"
TI = Twilight of the Idols (sections abbreviated "Maxims," "Socrates," "Reason," "World,"
"Morality," "Errors," "Improvers," "Germans," "Skirmishes," "Ancients," "Hammer")
TL = "On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense"
UM = Untimely Meditations (when referenced as a whole)
WP = The Will to Power
WPh = "We Philologists"
WS = The Wanderer and His Shadow
144
Z = Thus Spoke Zarathustra (references to Z list the part number and chapter title followed by
the relevant section number when applicable: Z:III "On Old and New Tablets" 1).
From: Journal of Nietzsche Studies.

Nietzsche writing in English (from different sources):

“The Birth of Tragic Thought.” (Die Geburt des tragischen Gedankens). Translation. Ursula
Bernis, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 9, no. 2, Fall 1983, 3-15.

“The Dionysian Worldview.” (Die dionysische Weltanschauung). Translation. Claudia

Crawford, Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 13, 1997, 81-97. JFL 01-623

“Fate and History.” (Fatum und Geschichte). Translation. George J. Stack, Philosophy Today 37,
2, 1993, 154-156.

“Freedom of the Will and Fate.” (Freiheit des Willens und Fatum). Translation. George J.
Stack, Philosophy Today, 37, 2, 1993, 156-158.

Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language. Editor and Translation. Sander L. Gilman, Carole
Blair, and David J. Parent. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

“My Life.” (Mein Leben). Translation. R.J. Hollingdale, Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 3, 1992, 5-9.

“On Moods.” (Über Stimmungen). Translation. Graham Parkes in Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 2,
1991, 5-11.

“On Music and Words.” (Über Musik und Wort). Translation. Walter Kaufmann, in Carl
Dahlhaus, Between Romanticism and Modernism: Four Studies in the Music of the Later 19th Century.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980) 106-19.

“On Schopenhauer.” (Zu Schopenhauer). Translation. Christopher Janaway in Willing and

Nothingness: Schopenhauer as Nietzsche’s Educator. Editor Christopher Janaway. (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1998) 258-265.

“On the Future of Our Educational Institutions.” (Über die Zukunft unserer
Bildungsanstalten). Translation. Michael W. Grenke. (South Bend, Ind: St. Augustine’s Press,
2004)

“On the Relationship of Alcibiades Speech to the Other Speeches in Plato’s Symposium.”
(Über das Verhältnis der Rede des Alcibiades zu den übrigen Reden des platonischen

145
Symposions). Translation. David Scialdone, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, v.15, no. 2, 1991,
3-5.

“On Teleology, or Teleology since Kant.” Translation. Paul Swift, Nietzscheana 8, 2000, 1-20.

“On the Theory of Quantitative Rhythm.” (Zur Theorie der quantitierenden Rhythmik).
Translation. James Halporn, Arion, 6, 1967, 233-243.

"On Truth and Lie in a Nonmoral Sense." (Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen
Sinne," 1873). Translation. Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Nietzsche.

Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen,
1870-73). Translation. Marianne Cowan. (South Bend, IN: Gateway, 1962

Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870s. Editor and
Translation. Daniel Breazeale. (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1979).

The Poetry of Friedrich Nietzsche. Translation with commentary by Philip Grundlehner. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

Prefaces to unwritten works (Fünf Vorreden zu fünf ungeschriebenen Büchern) Translation and
editor by Michael W. Grenke. (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 2005).

The Pre-Platonic Philosophers. Translation. Greg Whitlock. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
2001).

“Time-Atom Theory.” (Nachgelassene Fragment, early 1873). Translation. Carol Diethe with
modifications by Keith Ansell Pearson, The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 20, 2000, 1-4.

Unpublished Writings from the Period of Unfashionable Observations, The Complete Works of Friedrich
Nietzsche. vol. 11. Translation. Richard T. Gray. (Stanford, California: Stanford University
Press, 1999).

We Classicists (Wir Philologen, 1875). Translation. William Arrowsmith in Unmodern

Observations. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

The Will to Power (Der Wille zur Macht published in editions of increasing size in 1901, 1904, and
1910-11). Translation. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. (New York: Vintage, 1967).

Writings from the Late Notebooks. Editor. Rüdiger Bittner and Translation. Kate Sturge. (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

146
Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche. Editor and Translation. Christopher Middleton. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1969).

Nietzsche: A Self-Portrait from His Letters. Editor and Translation. Peter Fuss and Henry Shapiro.
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971).

The Peacock and the Buffalo: The Poetry of Nietzsche. Translator: James Luchte. 2010. Continuum
Press, 275 poems.

Nietzsche's Notebook of 1887-1888. By Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).

Translator: Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Online.

Nietzsche's Last Notebooks 1888. By Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).

Translator: Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Online.

Books on Nietzsche and Nihilism.

New book just out:

Paul van Tongeren, Friedrich Nietzsche and European Nihilism by. Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2018. This book has a section on the Lenzer Heide notes.

Additional books:

Darby, Tom, Béla Egyed, and Ben Jones (Editors), Nietzsche and the Rhetoric of Nihilism: Essays
on Interpretation, Language and Politics (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1989).

Havas, Randall, Nietzsche’s Genealogy: Nihilism and the Will to Knowledge (Ithaca, NY and London:
Cornell University Press, 1995).

Morrison, Robert G., Nietzsche and Buddhism: A Study in Nihilism and Ironic Affinities (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997).

Schutte, Ofelia, Beyond Nihilism: Nietzsche without Masks (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1984).

Nietzsche's nihilism in Walter Benjamin. Mauro Ponzi.

Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

Nietzsche and Modernism: Nihilism and Suffering in Lawrence, Kafka and Beckett. By Stewart Smith.

Between the Prophets and Nihilism: Nietzsche Responds to Apocalyptic Thought. By O'Mara William
Edward.
147
Prophets of nihilism: Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Camus. By Sean D. Illing.

Against Nihilism: Nietzsche meets Dostoevsky. By Maia Stepenberg, Maia. (2018). University of
Chicago Press.

Bibliography on Nihilism (recent to older)

“Nietzsche's Nihilism” Li, G. (2016). Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 11(2), 298-319.

“Rethinking nihilism”. By T. Llanera. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 2016. 42(9), 937-950.

Nihilism and Education in Heidegger's Essay: "Nietzsche's Word: "God Is Dead". By Michael
Ehrmantraut. 2016. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 48(8), 764-784.

“Death and Christianity”

Goss, Boaz; Ridenour, Autumn Alcott. Christian Bioethics: Non-Eucumenical Studies in Medical
Ethics 23.1 (Apr 2017): 1-6.

“Nietzsche's Agonistic Ethics of Friendship”

Verkerk, Willow. Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy (Revue canadienne de
philosophie continentale) 20.2 (Fall 2016): 22-41.

“Why? Gets No Answer: Paul Katsafanas's Agency and the Foundation of Ethics”
Dannenberg, Jorah. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 47.3 (Fall 2016): 418-434.

“Response to Bernard Reginster, Jorah Dannenberg, and Andrew Huddleston”

Katsafanas, Paul. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 47.3 (Fall 2016): 457-478.

“Physiologies of Eros: A Response to Fiona Ellis“

Kuzma, Joseph D. Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 52.2 (June
2016): 263-272.

“Playing, Valuing, and Living: Examining Nietzsche's Playful Response to Nihilism”

Harper, Aaron. Journal of Value Inquiry 50.2 (June 2016): 305-323.

“Melville and Nietzsche: Living the Death of God”

Anderson, Mark. Philosophy and Literature 40.1 (Apr 2016): 59-75.

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Interpretation and the Future of Hermeneutics”
Davey, Nicholas. Tropos: Rivista di ermeneutica e critica filosofica 9.1 (2016): 25-43.

“Is Nietzsche a Life-Affirmer?”

May, Simon. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 78 (2016): 211-226.

“Camus, Nietzsche, and the Absurd: Rebellion and Scorn versus Humor and Laughter”
Gordon, Mordechai. Philosophy and Literature 39.2 (Oct 2015): 364-378.

“Nihilism in Samuel Beckett's the Lost Ones: A Tale for Holocaust Remembrance”
Kleinberg-Levin, David. Philosophy and Literature 39.1A (Sept 2015): A212-A233.

“Musil on Ethics and Aesthetics: Essayism as a Way of Living”

Talay-Turner, Zeynep. Philosophy and Literature 39.1A (September 2015): A49-A65.

“Fugitive Pleasure and the Meaningful Life: Nietzsche on Nihilism and Higher Values”
Katsafanas, Paul. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1.3 (Fall 2015): 396-416.

“My Nietzsche at Thirty”

Schacht, Richard. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 46.2 (Summer 2015): 207-228.

“Two Erotic Ideals”

Ellis, Fiona. Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 51.1 (March
2015): 41-59.

“Naturalism, Causality, and Nietzsche's Conception of Science”

Remhof, Justin. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 46.1 (Spring 2015): 110-119.

“Nietzsche's Free Spirits and the Beauty of Illusion”

Campbell, Eric. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 46.1 (Spring 2015): 90-98.

“Nishitani's Nietzsche: Will to Power and the Moment”

Flavel, Sarah. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 46.1 (Spring 2015): 12-24.

“On Composition and Decomposition of the Body: Rethinking Health and Illness”
Koshy, Abey. Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research 32.1 (Jan 2015): 93-108.

“Introductory Study: Nietzsche on Culture and Subjectivity”

Stellino, Paolo; Gori, Pietro. Quaderns de Filosofia 2.1 (2015): 11-23.

“Facing the Finite Nature of Life: Royce on Negativity and Religion, and His Reflections on
the Immanentism of Feuerbach and Nietzsche”
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“Vattimo and Caritas: A Postmodern Categorical Imperative?”

Harris, Matthew Edward. Kritike: An Online Journal of Philosophy 8.2 (Dec 2014): 47-65.

“Leo Strauss and Aristophanes”

Panagiotarakou, Eleni. Idealistic Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 44.2-3 (Sum-Fall
2014): 179-192.

“Albert Camus' Caligula and the Philosophy of the Marquis de Sade”

Larson, J. Philosophy and Literature 37.2 (Oct 2013): 360-373.

“Deleuze, Nietzsche, and the overcoming of nihilism”

Woodward, Ashley. Continental Philosophy Review, 2013, Vol.46 (1), pp.115-147

“The Future of Paradosis: Jean-Luc Nancy's Dis-Enclosure: Deconstruction of Christianity”

Bergo, Bettina. Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy (Revue canadienne de philosophie
continentale) 17.2 (Fall 2013): 178-203.

“How the Free Spirit Became Free: Sickness and Romanticism in Nietzsche's 1886 Prefaces”
Mitchell, David. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21.5 (Sept 2013): 946-966.

“Kant, Nietzsche and the Idealization of Friendship into Nihilism”

Van Tongeren, Paul. Kriterion: Revista de Filosofia 54.128 (July-Dec 2013): 401-417.

“Consistent Nihilism”
Doomen, Jasper. Philosophical Inquiry: International Quarterly 36.3-4 (Sum-Fall 2013): 62-77.

“Valuation and the Will to Power: Nietzsche's Ethics with Ontology”

Rydenfelt, Henrik. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 44.2 (Sum 2013): 213-224.

“Desdemona's Lie: Nihilism, Perfectionism, Historicism”

Franks, Paul. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 44.2 (Sum 2013): 225-245.

“Deleuze, Nietzsche, and the Overcoming of Nihilism”

Woodward, Ashley. Continental Philosophy Review 46.1 (Apr 2013): 115-147.

“Flamme bin ich sicherlich -- Flame am I...: To Eternity”

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“Disgust, Purity, and a Longing for Companionship: Dialectics of Affect in Nietzsche's

Imagined Community”
Faulkner, Joanne. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 44.1 (Spring 2013): 49-68.

“Thinking through Nihilism: The Reclamation of Embodied Thought for Enhancing Cultural
Practices” Magrini, James. Analysis and Metaphysics 12 (2013): 133-153.

“The Bottomless Brightness of the Open Expanse: Reflections on Japanese and Continental
Philosophy Kalmanson, Leah. Comparative and Continental Philosophy 4.2 (Nov 2012): 283-293.

“Trope, Reason, and Affirmation in Nietzsche's and Novalis' Theories of Language”

Ezekiel, Anna. Philosophy Study 2.10 (Oct 2012): 742-753.

“Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil: A Morality of Immoralism”

Oyeshile, Olatunji A. Kaygi: Uludag Universitesi Felsefe Dergisi (Uludag University Journal of
Philosophy) 18 (Spring 2012): 101-110.

“Metaethics and Nihilism in Reginster’s the Affirmation of Life”

Hussain, Nadeem J. Z. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 43.1 (Spring 2012): 99-117.

“Suffering and the Affirmation of Life”

Clark, Maudemarie. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 43.1 (Spring 2012): 87-98.

“Will to Power: A Critique of Nihilistic Tendencies in Reproductive Technology”

Tham, Joseph. The New Bioethics: A Multidisciplinary Journal of Biotechnology and the Body 18.2
(2012): 115-132.

“Nietzsche and Taylor between Truth and Meaning”

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“Consistent Nihilism”
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“Nietzsche's Non-Reductive Naturalism: Evolution, Teleology, and Value”

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“Camus and Nihilism”

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“Transcendence and the Problem of Otherworldly Nihilism: Taylor, Heidegger, Nietzsche”

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“Affective Aporetics: Complementary Contradictions in the Interpretation of Friedrich

Nietzsche”
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Adorno on Nihilism and Modern Science, Animals, and Jews

Babich, Babette. Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy (Revue canadienne de
philosophie continentale) 15.1 (Spring 2011): 110-145.

“The Problem of Evil and the Possibility of Nihilism”

Pauley, John A. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 19.1 (February 2011): 95-114.

“Aquinas and Modern Juridical Nihilism (and Four Other Figures: Camus, Kelsen, Nietzsche,
Orwell).” Possenti, Vittorio. Aquinas: Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia 54.3 (2011): 453-467.

“Sacred Communication, or: Thinking Nihilism through Bataille”

Haase, Ullrich. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 41.3 (October 2010): 304-318.

“The Problem of Nihilism in Modern Political Philosophy: A Nietzschean Discussion”

Küçükalp, Derda. Kaygi: Uludag Universitesi Felsefe Dergisi (Uludag University Journal of Philosophy)
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“If Nietzsche Only Knew”

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“Ex aliquo nihil: Nietzsche on Science, Anarchy, and Democratic Nihilism”

Babich, Babette. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84.2 (Spring 2010): 231-255

“On the Logic of Values”

Dries, Manuel. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 39 (Spring 2010): 30-50.

“Philosophy and Literature: Two Lines of Fusion”

Luks, Leo. Problemos: Mokslo darbai (Problems: Research Papers) 78 (2010): 125-142.

“Heidegger's Nietzsche, the Doctrine of Eternal Return, and the Phenomenology of Human
Finitude” Stolorow, Robert D. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 41.1 (2010): 106-114.

152
“On the Unity of Nietzsche's Philosophy”
Kierans, Kenneth. Animus: A Philosophical Journal for Our Time 14 (2010): 94-109.

“Nietzschean Traits in the Works of Leszek Kolakowski”

Mackiewicz, Witold. Dialogue and Universalism 20.7-8 (2010): 57-75.

“Nietzsche, the Kyoto School, and Transcendence”

Schroeder, Brian. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 37 (Spring 2009): 44-65.

“Nihilism and the Eschaton in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot”

Valentine, John. Florida Philosophical Review: The Journal of the Florida Philosophical Association 9.2
(Winter 2009): 136-147.

“The Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence and Its Significance with Respect to On the Genealogy
of Morals” Paphitis, Sharli Anne. South African Journal of Philosophy 28.2 (2009): 189-198.

“Zarathustra and the Children of Abraham”

Luchte, James. Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy 20 (2009): 195-225.

“Universalism versus Nihilism: In the Absence of a Universalist Narrative Is a New Virtue

Ethics Possible?” Krieglstein, Werner. Dialogue and Universalism 19.3-5 (2009): 151-165.

“Nihilism as Axiological Illness”

Râmbu, Nicolae. Cultura: International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 6.2 (2009): 85-
107.

“Nihilism and the Affirmation of Life: A Review of and Dialogue with Bernard Reginster”
Gemes, Ken. European Journal of Philosophy 16.3 (Dec 2008): 459-466.

“Searching for the Power-I: Nietzsche and Nirvana”

Hanson, Jim. Asian Philosophy 18.3 (Nov 2008): 231-244.

“How Does the Ascetic Ideal Function in Nietzsche's Genealogy?”

Hatab, Lawrence J. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 35-36 (Spring-Autumn 2008): 106-123.

“The Sustainability of Nietzsche's Will to Affirmation”

McGuirk, James. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 82.2 (Spring 2008): 237-263.

“Technology and the Modern Predicament: Heidegger on the Saving Grace”

George, Silby K. Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research 25.1 (January-March 2008): 75-
105.

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“Nietzsche and Heidegger”
Lozar, Janko M. Synthesis Philosophica 23:1.45 (2008): 121-133.

“Futures for Philosophy of Education”

Peters, Michael A. Analysis and Metaphysics 7 (2008): 13-25.

“Nihilism, Nietzsche and the Doppelganger Problem”

Pigden, Charles R. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice: An International Forum 10.5 (Nov 2007): 441-
456.

“Leo Strauss on German Nihilism: Learning the Art of Writing”

Altman, William H F. Journal of the History of Ideas 68.4 (Oct 2007): 587-612.

“Still Making Sense of Nietzsche”

Villa, Dana. Political Theory: An International Journal of Political Philosophy 35.4 (Aug 2007): 508-
516.

“Truth, Truthfulness and Philosophy in Plato and Nietzsche”

Simpson, David. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15.2 (May 2007): 339-360.

“The Court of Justice: Heidegger's Reflections on Anaximander”

Kleinberg-Levin, David Michael. Research in Phenomenology 37.3 (2007): 385-416.

“Nietzsche and the Circle of Nothing: The Turns and Returns of Fetishism”
Winkler, Rafael. Philosophy Today 51.4 (Winter 2007): 427-437.

“After Fascism, after the War: Thresholds of Thinking in Contemporary Italian Philosophy”
Sepper, Dennis L. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 80.4 (Fall 2006): 603-619.

“Lyotard, Nihilism and Education”

Peters, Michael A. Studies in Philosophy and Education 25.4 (July 2006): 303-314.

“Nietzsche's Doctrines, Nietzsche's Signs”

Stegmaier, Werner. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 31 (Spring 2006): 20-41.

“Strauss and Christianity”

Pelluchon, Corine. Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 33.2 (Spring 2006): 185-203.

“Deleuze Becoming Nietzsche Becoming Spinoza Becoming Deleuze: Toward a Politics of

Immanence” Schrift, Alan D. Philosophy Today 50, Supp (2006): 187-194.

“The Will to Create”

Gabriel, Jazmine. Dialogue: Journal of Phi Sigma Tau 47.2-3 (April 2005): 79-91.
154
“Theological Nihilism and Italian Philosophy”
Schroeder, Brian. Philosophy Today 49.4 (Winter 2005): 355-361.

“Nihilism in Italy”
D'Agostini, Franca. Philosophy Today 49.4 (Winter 2005): 342-354.

“Nietzsche, Science, and Philosophical Nihilism”

Bamford, Rebecca. South African Journal of Philosophy 24.4 (2005): 241-259.

“Rorty's Nietzschean Pragmatism: A Jamesian Response”

Boffetti, Jason M. Review of Politics 66.4 (Fall 2004): 605-631.

“Freedom of the Void: Hegel and Nietzsche on the Politics of Nihilism: Toward a Critical
Understanding of 9/11”
Gupta, Jay A. Telos: A Quarterly Journal of Critical Thought 129 (Fall-Winter 2004): 17-39.

“Zen after Zarathustra: The Problem of the Will in the Confrontation between Nietzsche and
Buddhism” Davis, Bret W. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 28 (Fall 2004): 89-138.

“Sartre and Nietzsche”

Daigle, Christine. Sartre Studies International: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Existentialism and
Contemporary Culture 10.2 (2004): 195-210.

“Willful History: Nietzsche, Nihilism, and the Possibility of Freedom”

Altman, Matthew C; Coe, Cynthia. International Studies in Philosophy 36.3 (2004): 5-13.

“Suffering, Nihilism and Beyond: Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault”

Hicks, Steven. Skepsis: A Journal for Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Research 15.1 (2004): 268-290.

“The Weak Subject: Peace and Nihilism Reconsidered”

Sützl, Wolfgang. Philosophy and Social Criticism 29.4 (July 2003): 407-425.

“Heidegger and Nietzsche; the Question of Value and Nihilism in Relation to Education”
Irwin, Ruth. Studies in Philosophy and Education 22.3-4 (May-July 2003): 227-244.

“Nihilism: Beyond Optimism and Pessimism: Threat or Blessing for Education at the Turn of
the Century”
Lambeir, Bert; Smeyers, Paul. Studies in Philosophy and Education 22.3-4 (May-July 2003): 183-
194.

“Value in the View of a Metaphysical Principle of Creativeness in Nietzsche”

Aiftinca, Marin. Revue Roumaine de Philosophie 47.1-2 (2003): 29-38.
155
“Nietzsche and the Eternal Return of Sacrifice”
Keenan, Dennis King. Research in Phenomenology 33 (2003): 167-185.

“Nihilism in Seamus Heaney”

Gilsenan Nordin, Irene. Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (October 2002): 405-414.

“To Our Tragedy: The Aesthetic Determination of Nietzsche's Nihilism”

Canis, Paul. New Nietzsche Studies: The Journal of the Nietzsche Society 5.1-2 (Spring-Summer 2002):
113-131.

“European Culture in the Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Universalism”

Kaniowski, Wladyslaw. Dialogue and Universalism 12.4-5 (2002): 103-122.

“Doctor Faustus: The Essence and Culturalization of Fascism”

Kuczynski, Janusz; Bankowski, Maciej [(Translation)]. Dialogue and Universalism 12.4-5 (2002):
75-101.

“A Zen Critique of Nietzsche”

Reid, Alan. De Philosophia 17.2 (2002): 139-156.

“Ontology, Metaphysics, Ethics and Nihilism. Essay on Nietzsche and Heidegger”

Daigle, Christine. Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 16 (2002): 3-18.

“Nihilism and the Affirmation of Life”

Reginster, Bernard. International Studies in Philosophy 34.3 (2002): 55-68.

“Nietzsche, Heidegger, Girard on 'The Death of God'”

Latré, Stijn. Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 57.2 (April-June 2001): 299-305.

“Simmel's Mistake: The Eternal Recurrence As a Riddle about the Intelligible Form of Time
As a Whole” Rogers, Peter. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 21 (Spring 2001): 77-95.

“Nietzsche's Agon with Ressentiment: Towards a Therapeutic Reading of Critical

Transvaluation” Siemens, Herman W. Continental Philosophy Review 34.1 (March 2001): 69-93.

“Postmodernism's Use and Abuse of Nietzsche”

Gemes, Ken. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62.2 (March 2001): 337-360.

“Complete Nihilism in Nietzsche”

Williston, Byron. Philosophy Today 45.4 (Winter 2001): 357-369.

“Kubrick and Ricoeur on Nihilistic Horror and the Symbolism of Evil”

156
Stoehr, Kevin L. Film and Philosophy Special edition (2001): 89-102.

“Slave Morality, Will to Power, and Nihilism in On the Genealogy of Morality.”

Morrisson, Iain. International Studies in Philosophy 33.3 (2001): 127-144.

“Two Types of Nihilism and Their Contemporary Relevance”

Riser, John. International Studies in Philosophy 33.4 (2001): 77-98.

“Nietzsche and Wittgenstein: On Truth, Perspectivism, and Certainty”

Ronan, Shoshana. Dialogue and Universalism 11.5-6 (2001): 97-115.

“Nietzsche for Nurses: Caring for the Übermensch”

Drummond, John S. Nursing Philosophy: An International Journal for Healthcare Professionals 1.2 (Oct
2000): 147-157

“Nietzsche's Idealism”
Havas, Randall. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 20 (Fall 2000): 90-99.

“Nietzsche and Early Buddhism”

Parkes, Graham. Philosophy East and West 50.2 (Apr 2000): 254-267.

“Nietzsche and Buddhism for Yokichi Yajima”

Takeda, Sumio. New Nietzsche Studies: The Journal of the Nietzsche Society 4.3-4 (2000-01): 99-105.

Recent articles on Nietzsche and Nihilism listed by authors:

Acampora, C. D. (2009). “The affirmation of life: Nietzsche on the overcoming of nihilism.”
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 47(3), 480-481.

Andrén, M. (2014). “Nihilism and responsibility in the writings of Karl Jaspers.” European
Review, 22(2), 209-216. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1062798714000052

Blackledge, P. (2010). “Marxism, nihilism, and the problem of ethical politics today.” Socialism
and Democracy, 24(2), 101-123, 287.

Bousquet, A. (2016). “Ernst Jünger and the problem of nihilism in the age of total war.” Thesis
Eleven, 132(1), 17.

Brenkman, J. (2013). " . . . Wrestling with (my god!) my god": Modernism, nihilism, and belief.
Qui Parle, 21(2), 1-25, 213

157
Burch, R. (2014). On Nietzsche’s concept of 'European nihilism'. European Review, 22(2), 196-
208. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1062798714000040

Conti, C. (2011). Nihilism negated narratively: The agency of art in the sot-weed factor. Papers
on Language and Literature, 47(2), 141-161.

Currie, D., McElwee, G., & Somerville, P. (2012). Managerialism and nihilism. Tamara Journal
of Critical Organisation Inquiry, 10(4), 61-72.

Falk, H. (2014). The 'theological nihilism' of Friedrich Gogarten. On a context in Karl

Löwith's critique of Carl Schmitt. European Review, 22(2), 217-230.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1062798714000064

Harper, A. (2016). Playing, valuing, and living: Examining Nietzsche’s playful response to
nihilism. Journal of Value Inquiry, 50(2), 305-323. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10790-015-
9508-7

Janaway, C. (2009). The affirmation of life: Nietzsche on overcoming nihilism. Mind, 118(470),
518.
KATSAFANAS, P. (2015). Fugitive pleasure and the meaningful life: Nietzsche on nihilism
and higher values. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 1(3), 396-416.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/apa.2015.5

Li, G. (2016). Nietzsche's nihilism. Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 11(2), 298.

Martin, J. (2010). A radical freedom? Gianni Vattimo's 'emancipatory nihilism'. Contemporary

Political Theory, 9(3), 325-344. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2009.7

Matheson, D. (2017). THE INCOHERENCE OF SOFT NIHILISM. THINK, 16(47), 127-

135. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1477175617000252

Morgan, D. (2012). Modernism and nihilism. Modernism/Modernity, 19(4), 829-831.

Nath, M. (2011). 'By curious sovereignty of art': Wyndham Lewis and nihilism. The Journal of
Wyndham Lewis Studies, 2, 1-22,179.

Owen, D. (2009). The affirmation of life: Nietzsche on overcoming nihilism. Ethics, 119(3),
598.

Pasha, M. K. (2012). Islam, nihilism and liberal secularity. Journal of International Relations and
Development, 15(2), 272-289. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/jird.2011.25

158
Patrick, S. (2016). Declinism, nihilism and conflict avoidance in the novels of Michel
Houellebecq. Essays in French Literature and Culture, (53), 99-114,188.

Petersen, P. S. (2011). Jack London’s dialectical philosophy between Nietzsche’s radical

nihilism and Jules de Gaultier's bovarysme. Partial Answers, 9(1), 65-77.

Pozzo, R. (2015). Nihilism and metaphysics: The third voyage. The Review of Metaphysics, 69(2),
403-405.

Prozorov, S. (2012). The katechon in the age of biopolitical nihilism. Continental Philosophy
Review, 45(4), 483-503. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11007-012-9232-y

Rappleye, J., Komatsu, H. (2016). Living on borrowed time: Rethinking temporality, self,
nihilism, and schooling. Comparative Education, 52(2), 177-201.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2016.1142736

Rosner, D. J. (2015). Civilizational trauma and value nihilism in Boccaccio’s decameron.

Comparative Civilizations Review, (73), 27-41.

Sanders, C. J. (2014). Dying to believe or dying to belief? Systemic violence and the
possibilities of constructive nihilism in pastoral theology. Pastoral Psychology, 63(4), 437-452.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11089-013-0575-z

Söder, H. (2013). Philosophical nihilism: A new logic for technological modernity. SATS,
14(2), 187-198. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/sats-2013-0011

Talavera, P. (2014). Economicism and nihilism in the eclipse of humanism. Humanities, 3(3),
340-378. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h3030340

Thomson, I. (2011). Transcendence and the problem of otherworldly nihilism: Taylor,

Heidegger, Nietzsche. Inquiry, 54(2), 140.

Vogel, L. (2018). Evolution and the meaning of being: Heidegger, Jonas and nihilism.
Continental Philosophy Review, 51(1), 65-79. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11007-017-9411-y

Wittrock, J. (2014). The social logic of late nihilism. Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt on
global space and the sites of gods. European Review, 22(2), 244-257.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1062798714000088

Wittrock, J., & Andrén, M. (2014). The critique of European nihilism. Interpretation,
responsibility, and action. European Review, 22(2), 179-195.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1062798714000039
159
Wolff, E. C. (2014). Apolitìa and tradition in Julius Evola as reaction to nihilism. European
Review, 22(2), 258-273. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S106279871400009X

Woodward, A. (2011). Camus and nihilism. Sophia, 50(4), 543-559.

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11841-011-0274-0

Woodward, A. (2013). Deleuze, Nietzsche, and the overcoming of nihilism. Continental

Philosophy Review, 46(1), 115-147. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11007-013-9245-1

Dissertations and Theses on Nietzsche and Nihilism

Starting with the recent:

Creasy, Kaitlyn N. "Thinking Differently, Feeling Differently: Nietzsche on Nihilism and

Radical Openness." 10288105, University of New Mexico, 2017.
O'Mara, William Edward, IV. "Between the Prophets and Nihilism: Nietzsche Responds to
Apocalyptic Thought." 10288661, University of California, Irvine, 2017.
Meyboti, Zahra. "Nietzsche and Problem of Nihilism." 10190463, University of Wisconsin -
Milwaukee, 2016.
Remhof, Justin Marc. "Nietzsche's Reconception of Science: Overcoming Nihilism." 3614687,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2013.
Osborn, Ronald Elliott. "Nihilism's Conscience: Grounding Human Rights After Darwin,
Marx, and Nietzsche." 3551731, University of Southern California, 2012.
Storey, David. "Nature, Nihilism, and Life in Heidegger and Nietzsche: Naturalistic
Metaphysical Foundations for Environmental Ethics." 3466721, Fordham University, 2011.
Wade, Jeffrey Jacob. "Nihilism Unbound: Strauss, Nietzsche and Foucault as Nihilist
Thinkers." 1482142, Portland State University, 2010.
Liu, Xiao Xiao. "On Nietzsche's Nihilism--- Based on the Reading of Will to Power."
10348893, Sun Yat-Sen University (People's Republic of China), 2010.
Pope, Michael W. "Philosophizing with a Hammer: Nietzsche's War on Nihilism." 1481381,
California State University, Dominguez Hills, 2009.
Kalsi, Ashutosh. "The Ending of Nihilism: From Nietzsche to Krishnamurti." 3277769, State
University of New York at Buffalo, 2007.

160
Dries, Manuel. "The Paradigm of Becoming: A Genealogy of Nihilism and Becoming from
Antiquity to Nietzsche." U219217, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), 2007.
van Boxel, Lise. "Nobility and Nihilism: Nietzsche's Science of Souls." NR22025, University
of Toronto (Canada), 2006.
Smith, Toby. "Nihilism in Nietzsche, Heidegger and Levinas." U210071, University of
Durham (United Kingdom), 2006.
Karzai, Anas. "From Social Philosophy to Sociology: The Dialectic of Nihilism and Social
Affirmation in Nietzsche's Thought." NR19806, York University (Canada), 2005.
Bolanos, Paolo A. "On Affirmation and Becoming: A Deleuzian Reading of Nietzsche's
Critique of Nihilism." MR10704, Brock University (Canada), 2005.
Nakama, Yoshiko. "Searching for an Educational Response to Nihilism in our Time: Nishitani
Keiji in Dialogue with Friedrich Nietzsche." 3174862, Columbia University, 2005.
Price, I. E. "Nietzsche on Nihilism and the Affirmative Ideal." U150216, University of
Birmingham (United Kingdom), 2002.
Paull, Matthew Stephen. "Nietzsche, Nihilism and the Eternal Return." 0804919, University of
New South Wales (Australia), 2001.
Elbe, Stefan Heinz Edward. "European Nihilism and the Meaning of the European Idea: A
Study of Nietzsche's 'Good Europeanism' in Response to the Debate in the Post-Cold War
Era." U615465, London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom), 2001.
Ford, James Michael. "Nietzsche, Nihilism, and Christian Theodicy." 9972746, Princeton
University, 2000.
Gilbert, Brian Howard. "Nietzsche and Nihilism." NQ41070, University of Toronto (Canada),
1999.
Howe, Jonathan Thomas. "Nietzsche, Whitehead, and the Problem of Nihilism." 9932563,
Claremont Graduate University, 1999.
Shanahan, William Edward, "The Way of Nietzsche: A Study in Rhetorical Nihilism."
9803016, University of Texas at Austin, 1997.
O'Mahony, D. "On Friedrich Nietzsche's Response to the Problem of Nihilism." U095173,
University College Dublin (Ireland), 1997.
Doyle, T. "Nietzsche's Aesthetic Response to Nihilism." U086500, University College Dublin
(Ireland), 1996.
Williston, Byron. "The Problem of Nihilism in the Philosophy of Nietzsche." MM00510,
University of Ottawa (Canada), 1994.
161
Morrison, Robert Gerard. "Nihilism and Nietzsche's Buddha: A Study of Ironic Affinities."
U046118, The University of Liverpool (United Kingdom), 1993.
Fiala, Andrew Gordon. "Overcoming Nihilism: Nietzsche's Revaluation of all Values."
1349846, California State University, Long Beach, 1992.
Crooks, James Robert. "Between Nihilism and Nothingness: Heidegger's 'Auseinandersetzung'
with Nietzsche." NL54457, University of Toronto (Canada), 1990.
Mortensen, Ellen. "`Le Feminin' and Nihilism: Reading Irigaray with Nietzsche and
Heidegger." 8923391, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1989.
Aloni, Nimrod. "Overman and the Overcoming of Nihilism: Nietzsche as Educator."
9020479, Columbia University, 1987.
Berrier, Robert. "Nihilism in Heidegger and Nietzsche." MK28045, University of Guelph
(Canada), 1976.

162
 Martin Heidegger and Nietzsche
Martin Heidegger during the years 1967-1968.

Heidegger’s connections to Lenzerheide.

Lectures in Hamburg, January. Die Herkunft der Kunst und die Bestimmung des Denkens,
lecture to Athens Academy of Sciences and Arts, April 4, 1967. Zollikon Seminar, April.
Martin and Elfride cruise Aegean with Luise Michaelson. Zollikon Seminar, July. Meets Paul
Celan (1920-1970) at Freiburg, July 24. Celan visits Todtnauberg the next day; writes
"Todtnauberg" poem August 1.

Heidegger spends a week with Medard Boss in Lenzerheide, September. 1968. Visits
Lenzerheide with Medard Boss and his wife in March. Visits Lenzerheide with Medard Boss,
September 1968. Medard Boss (1903 –1990). Heidegger in 1962 traveled to Greece and later
published his travel book as Sojourns: the journey to Greece. (Aufenthalte. German 1989, English
translation 2005).

"He corrupted me" [in German]: "Er hat mich kaputt gemacht"!
(Müller-Lauter 2000, page 17).
Heidegger’s often related remark to his friends about his relationship to Nietzsche. He took it
all too-personally.

Heidegger notes about Nietzsche for reflection from Heidegger’s view:

“Nietzsche’s deepest meditation therefore resides where he still recognizes himself as a
nihilist—and the limit of his meditation consists in his inability to recognize any longer his
attempted overcoming as the most extreme form of “nihilism.” That is denied him because he
cannot at all think nihilism in terms of metaphysics and the history of beyng, but only in terms
of morals and within the horizon of the thinking and positing of values.”
GA 96. Ponderings XII [25–26] et page 21. GA 96. Überlegungen XII–XV (Schwarze Hefte 1939–
1941), page 36.

Heidegger’s later notes:

“Nietzsche’s thought of the eternal recurrence of the same expresses the essence of the will to
power, and in this basic thought the beingness of beings consummates its history. The
consummation of metaphysics through Nietzsche is the grounding of the last age of
modernity: we name it the age of complete meaninglessness. This name thereby has a unique
metaphysical and also transitional nominative power. Meaninglessness is here understood
according to the concept of meaning worked out in Being and Time, viz., as the projective
domain of projection and especially of the projection of being onto its truth, whereby truth is
grasped as the clearing of self-concealing. (Cf. below, p. 98ff.). Meaninglessness is
truthlessness, i.e., the truthlessness of being.” GA 96. Ponderings XII [93–94] English
translation, page 21. GA 96. Überlegungen XII–XV (Schwarze Hefte 1939–1941), page 74.
163
Martin Heidegger’s Nietzsche Courses:

Wintersemester 1936/37. Nietzsche: Der Wille zur Macht [Vorlesung]

(zweistündig)

Sommertrimester 1937
Nietzsche metaphysische Grundstellung im abendländischen Denken [Vorlesung]
(zweistündig)

Oberstufe: Arbeitskreis zur Erläuterung der Vorlesung (Nietzsches metaphysische

Grundstellung) [Seminar]

Übungen im Sommersemester 1937

NIETZSCHES METAPHYSISCHE GRUNDSTELLUNG
(SEIN UND SCHEIN)
(GA 87).

Wintertrimester 1938/39
Nietzsches II. Unzeitgemäße Betrachtung [Vorlesung]

Sommertrimester 1939
Nietzsches Lehre vom Willen zur Macht als Erkenntnis [Vorlesung]
(einstündig)

Trimester 1940
Nietzsche: Der europäische Nihilismus [Vorlesung]

Übungen im Sommersemester 1944.

SKIZZEN ZU GRUNDBEGRIFFE DES DENKENS
GA 87. Section on values and nihilism.

GA BAND 87, NIETZSCHE SEMINARE 1937 UND 1944.

Published: 2004.
1. Nietzsches metaphysische Grundstellung (Sein und Schein).
2. Skizzen zu Grundbegriffe des Denkens.
Student lecture notes called this "Zur Nietzsche über Sein und Schein".
Wintertrimester 1938/39
Nietzsches II. Unzeitgemäße Betrachtung [Vorlesung]

164
Einführung in die philosophische Begriffsbildung
(Mittelstufe, Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben) [Seminar]. This may also
have to do with Nietzsche. There appears to be connection with the lecture series (Vorlesung)
given at the same time.
Sommertrimester 1939
Nietzsches Lehre vom Willen zur Macht als Erkenntnis [Vorlesung]
(einstündig)
Trimester 1940
Nietzsche: Der europäische Nihilismus [Vorlesung]
Nietzsches Metaphysik (planned for Wintersemester 1941/42, but not given). GA 50.

Martin Heidegger Nietzsche Publications

1936/37 Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst. In: GA 6.1 (Nietzsche I)
1937 Die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen. In: GA 6.1 (Nietzsche I).
1939 Nietzsches Lehre vom Willen zur Macht als Erkenntnis. In: GA 6.1 (Nietzsche I).
Die ewige Wiederkunft des Gleichen und der Wille zur Macht. In: GA 6.2 (Nietzsche II).
1940 Der europäische Nihilismus. In: GA 6.2 (Nietzsche II).
Nietzsches Metaphysik. In: GA 6.2 (Nietzsche II).
1943 Nietzsches Wort "Gott ist tot" [Vortrag]. In: GA 5.

1944-46 Die seinsgeschichtliche Bestimmung des Nihilismus. In: GA 6.2 (Nietzsche II).
1953 Wer ist Nietzsches Zarathustra? [Vortrag Bremen]. In: VA. GA 7.
1961 Nietzsche. Band I-II. Pfullingen. GA 6.1-6.2.
See also: Zur Seinsfrage (1955) / Über "die Linie" (From GA 9, Letter to Ernst Jünger)
See also: Was heisst Denken? (1951-1952), GA 8. First part this lecture series is about Nietzsche.

Martin Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe (GA) Notes.

GA 46 Nietzsches II. Unzeitgemässe Betrachtung. 1940.

GA 50 Nietzsches Metaphysik
(planned for Wintersemester 1941/42, but not given).
Pages: 1-87. (Very close to "Nietzsches Metaphysik (1940)" in GA 6.2).

GA 67 Metaphysik und Nihilismus.

1. Die Überwindung der Metaphysik (1938/39) (pages 3-174)
2. Das Wesen des Nihilismus (1946-1948) (pages 175-256),
Editor H. J. Friedrich, 1999, XII, 273p.

165
The following text has not been translated into English as of 2017.
Nevertheless, it seems to close to this published essay: "Nihilism as Determined by the
History of Being" (GA6). Note: 1946-48. “Das Wesen des Nihilismus”. GA 67.
However, the following note has been crossed out in the text. However, it is included in GA
67, page 261 as an addition. “Beilagen zu: Das Wesen des Nihilismus”.

Heidegger wrote:
Nietzsches Metaphysik 1940). GA 50, page 261.

[This text is crossed out in the draft but I think it interesting. Translation: Additions to the
Essence of Nihilism.
(4). The essence of nihilism. Nihilism - the question of being - metaphysics - being clever
(geschickte) Nihilism cannot be discussed as a singular phenomenon. The essence of nihilism
is, in the first place, complete. Basic experiences within the still veiled happenings the
overcoming of the metaphysics. Therefore, must be a sufficient experience the essence of
metaphysics. All that is necessary is the performance of a metaphysics concept of metaphysics.
With the nature of the “Metaphysics is also the metaphysics of metaphysics” [to concerns].
Metaphysics itself, however, we have today in their last, the present age of reason outgoing
and approaching figure. This is Nietzsche's metaphysics. Nihilism comes as a whole especially
in the face of metaphysics. Nietzsche metaphysics thinks for the first time of nihilism, but it
thinks him metaphysical. Nietzsche does not yet think of the nature of the Nihilism, (see my
Lecture, p. 1940, Nietzsche's Metaphysics 1940).” Translation by Daniel Fidel Ferrer.

Nietzsche Editions. Citation information:

Martin Heidegger usually used this edition of Nietzsche works:
Nietzsches Werke (Grossoktavausgabe) or
Grossoktavausgabe Nietzsches Werke. (GOA). Leipzig: Kröner, 1901-1913.
16 v. in 8. p., ports. 19 cm. Vols. 9-14 have imprint: Leipzig, C. G. Naumann, 1901-1904.

Martin Heidegger on Nietzsche. English Translations:

Nietzsche I: The Will to Power as Art. Edited and Translated by David F. Krell, New York,
Harper & Row, 1979.
Contains:
"The Will to Power as Art" (GA43).

Nietzsche II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Edited and Translated by David F. Krell, New
York, Harper & Row, 1984.
Contains:
"The Eternal Recurrence of the Same" (GA44).
"Who Is Nietzsche's Zarathustra?" (GA7).

166
There is also a one volume set of these two volumes:
Nietzsche: Volume I: The Will to Power As Art: Volume
II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same/ 2 Volumes in 1
by Martin Heidegger, David Farrell Krell. 609 pages. ISBN 0060638419

Nietzsche III: The Will to Power as Knowledge and Metaphysics. Edited by David F. Krell, translated
by Joan Stambaugh, New York, Harper & Row, 1987
Contains:
"The Will to Power as Knowledge" (GA47);
"The Eternal Recurrence of the Same and the Will to Power" (GA6);
"Nietzsche's Metaphysics" (GA6).
Nietzsche IV: Nihilism. Edited by David F. Krell, translated by Frank A. Capuzzi, New York,
Harper & Row, 1982.
Contains:
"European Nihilism" (GA6);
"Nihilism as Determined by the History of Being" (GA6).

There is also a one volume set of these two volumes:

Nietzsche: Volume III: The Will to Power As Knowledge
and As Metaphysics: Volume IV: Nihilism/ 2 Volumes in 1
by Martin Heidegger, David F. Krell. ISBN: 0060637943

The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays.

Translated by William Lovitt, New York, Harper and Row, 1977.
Contains: "The Word of Nietzsche: 'God Is Dead'".

Off the beaten track

Edited and translated by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes.
Imprint Cambridge, U.K.;
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Complete translation of GA5 Holzwege (1935-1946). Seventh Edition.
Includes new translation of: Nietzsche's Word "God Is Dead" (1943).
pp. 157-199.

See also: Pathmarks (GA9). Edited by William McNeill,

Cambridge University Press, 1998.
"On the Question of Being (1955)" This is a letter to Ernst Jünger.
One of the topics here is Nihilism. Early title: "Across "the Line".

Interpretation of Nietzsche's Second Untimely Meditation (GA 46). Translated by Ullrich Haase and
Mark Sinclair, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2016.

167
In: Heidegger's polemos: from being to politics / by Fried Gregory.
Yale University: 2000, pages 257-261 there is a translation and
discussion of three examples of changes in Heidegger's Nietzsche I and II
volumes compared to lectures in GA 43, p 30-31, 190-193, 273-274.

Example of passage left out of the earlier publications, but included in the later published
lectures by Heidegger, example quote:

“A very profound knowing and an even more profound seriousness are needed for
us to grasp what Nietzsche means by nihilism. For Nietzsche, Christianity is just
as nihilistic as Bolshevism, and consequently just as nihilistic as mere socialism.” Heidegger's
polemos: from being to politics, page 257.

What Is Called Thinking?

Translated by J. Glenn Gray, New York, Harper & Row, 1968.
This lecture series includes a major discussion of Nietzsche.
Given winter and summer semesters of 1951 and 1952 at the University of Freiburg.

Some Articles about Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche

Ansell Pearson, K. (1993). Geist' and Reich': Time, History, and Germany. Nietzsche and Heidegger
in The Fate of the New Nietzsche, Ansell Pearson, Keith (editor). Brookfield, Avebury.

Babich, B. E. (1993). "A Musical Retrieve of Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Technology: Cadence,
Concinnity, and Playing Brass." Man and World: 26(3) 239-260.

Bales, E. F. (1986). "Beyond Revenge: Paths in Heidegger and Nietzsche." Philosophy Today: 30
137-150.

Behler, E. and S. Taubeneck (1991). Confrontations: Derrida, Heidegger, Nietzsche. Stanford,

Stanford University Press.

Bergmann, P. (1995). "Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Americanization of Defeat." International

Studies in Philosophy: 27(3) 73-84.

Caputo, J. D. (1984). ""Supposing Truth to Be a Woman": Heidegger, Nietzsche, Derrida." Tulane

Studies in Philosophy: 32 15-21.

Comay, R. (1990). Redeeming Revenge: Nietzsche, Benjamin, Heidegger, and the Politics of
Memory. Nietzsche as Postmodernist, Koelb, Clayton (editor). Albany, SUNY Press

168
Cousireau, R. H. (1992). "The Ethical Stance of Nietzsche and Heidegger." Gregorianum: 73(1)
123-132.

Crowell, S. G. (1996). "The Cunning of Modernity: Ibanez-Noe, Heidegger, and

Nietzsche." International Studies in Philosophy: 28(3) 53-57.

Dallmayr, F. (1989). "The Discourse of Modernity: Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger

(and Habermas)." Praxis International: 8 377-406.

Derrida, J. (1986). "Interpreting Signatures (Nietzsche/Heidegger): Two Questions." Philosophy

and Literature: 10 246-262.

Detmer, D. (1989). "Heidegger and Nietzsche on "Thinking It Values"." Journal of Value Inquiry:
23 275-283.

Detsch, R. (1985). "A Non-Subjectivist Concept of Play--Gadamer and

Heidegger Versus Rilke and Nietzsche." Philosophy Today: 29 156-172.

Donaggio, E. (2000). "Zwischen Nietzsche und Heidegger:

Karl Lowiths anthropologische Philosophie des faktischen Lebens." Deutsche Zeitschrift fur
Philosophie: 48(1) 37-48.

Gelven, M. (1981). "From Nietzsche to Heidegger." Philosophy Today: 25 68-80.

Gray, J. G. (1953). "Heidegger "Evaluates" Nietzsche." Journal of the History of Ideas: 14 304-309.

Graybeal, J. (1990). Language and "The Feminine" in Nietzsche and Heidegger. Bloomington,
Indiana University Press

Guignon, C. and D. Pereboom (1995). Existentialism: Basic Writings -- Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,

Heidegger, Sartre. Indianapolis, Hackett.

Haar, M. (1988). Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of Art'. Exceedingly Nietzsche. D.
F. Krell. London, pages 13-30.

Haar, M. (1997). "The Place of Nietzsche in Reiner Schurmann's Thought and in His Reading of
Heidegger." Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal: 19/20(2/1) 229-245.

Hans, J. S. (1984). "The Question of Value in Nietzsche and Heidegger." Philosophy Today: 28 283-
299.

Havas, R. (1992). Who is Heidegger's Nietzsche? Heidegger: A Critical Reader, Dreyfus, Hubert
(editor). Cambridge, Blackwell.

169
Heidegger, M. and D. F. Krell (1987). Nietzsche--the Will to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics:
Martin Heidegger", V3. San Francisco, Harper and Row.

Hodge, J. (1991). "Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Critique of Humanism." Journal of the British
Society for Phenomenology: 75-79.

Howey, R. L. (1973). Heidegger and Jaspers on Nietzsche: A Critical Examination of Heidegger's and
Jaspers' Interpretations of Nietzsche. The Hague Nijhoff.

Ibanez Noe, J. A. (1995). "Heidegger, Nietzsche, Junger, and the Interpretation of the
Contemporary Age." Southern Journal of Philosophy: 33(1) 57-81.

Iyi, S. (1999). "What Heidegger Wishes to Transcend: Metaphysics or Nietzsche." Philosophical

Inquiry: 21(2) 87-92.

Kaufmann, W. (1992). Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Buber: Discovering the Mind, V2. New Brunswick,
Transaction Books.

Krell, D. F. (1990). Nietzsche (I and II): The Will to Power as Art, The Eternal Recurrence of the Same- -
Heidegger. San Francisco, Harper Collins.

Krell, D. F. (1990). Nietzsche (III and IV): The Will to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics-- Heidegger.
San Francisco, HarperCollins.

Latre, S. (2001). "Nietzsche, Heidegger, Girard on 'The Death of

God'." Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia: 57(2) 299-305.

Lawrence, J. P. (1989). "Nietzsche and Heidegger." History of European Ideas: 711-717.

Magnus, B. (1995). Postmodern Pragmatism: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida,

and Rorty. Pragmatism: From Progressivism to Postmodernism, Hollinger, Robert (editor).
Westport, Praeger.

McNeill, W. (1995). Traces of Discordance: Heidegger-Nietzsche. Nietzsche: A Critical Reader,

Sedgwick, Peter R (editor). Cambridge, Blackwell.

Megill, A. (1985). Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida.

Berkeley, University California Press.

Mullen, D. C. (1994). "Art, Science, and Truth in Nietzsche and Heidegger." International Studies in
Philosophy: 26(1) 45-55.

Pippin, R. B. (1991). Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Metaphysics of Modernity. Nietzsche and
Modern German Thought, Ansell Pearson, Keith (editor). New York, Routledge.

170
Reinhardt, K. F. (1952). The Existentialist Revolt, the Main Themes and Phases of Existentialism:
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre, Marcel. Milwaukee, Bruce.

Seigfried, H. (1990). "Autonomy and Quantum Physics: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and

Heisenberg." Philosophy of Science: 619-630.

Seigfried, H. (1995). "Art as Fetish in Nietzsche and Heidegger?" International Studies in Philosophy:
27(3) 95-103.

Shapiro, G. (1994). Debts Due and Overdue: Beginnings of Philosophy. Nietzsche, Heidegger, and
Anaximander in Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality. Schacht, Richard (editor). Berkeley, University
California Press.

Sikka, S. (1998). "On the Truth of Beauty: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Keats." Heythrop Journal: 39(3)
243-263.

Sheehan, Thomas.

“Overcoming Nihilism?" in Heidegger and Practical Philosophy, ed. David Pettigrew and
François Raffour, SUNY Press, 2000.

"Nihilism, Facticity, and the Economized Lethe: A Reflection on Heidegger's Zur Seinsfrage,"
in Thomas Sheehan et al., Heidegger: A Centennial Appraisal, Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press, 1990, pp. 28-61.

“Nihilism: Heidegger/Jünger/Aristotle," in Phenomenology: Japanese and American Perspectives,

edited by Burt C. Hopkins, Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1998, pp. 273-316.

Smith, G. B. (1996). Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Transition to Postmodernity. Chicago, University of
Chicago Press.

Thiele, L. P. (1994). "Twilight of Modernity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Politics." Political Theory:
22(3) 468-490.

Tuttle, H. N. (1996). The Crowd is Untruth: The Existential Critique of Mass Society in the Thought of
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Ortega y Gasset. New York, Lang.

Werkmeister, W. H. (1979). "From Kant to Nietzsche: The Ontology of Martin

Heidegger." Personalist: 60 397-401.

White, D. (1988). Heidegger on Nietzsche: The Question of Value. Postmodernism and Continental
Philosophy. H. J. Silverman. Albany, Suny Press 110-120.

171
Winchester, J. J. (1994). Nietzsche's Aesthetic Turn: Reading Nietzsche after Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida.
Albany, SUNY Press

Wittenberg, D. (2001). Philosophy, Revision, Critique: Rereading Practices in Heidegger, Nietzsche, and
Emerson. Stanford, Stanford University Press.

Young, J. (1995). "Being and Value: Heidegger contra Nietzsche." International Studies in Philosophy:
27(3) 105-116.

Zimmerman, M. E. (1977). "Heidegger and Nietzsche on Authentic Time." Cultural Hermeneutics: 4

239-264.

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 Book Final Words
Principle conclusion: all of Nietzsche’s philosophical thought can be seen as his response to
the modern crisis of Nihilism. Muse. Are we still in the same “crisis”? Nietzsche, Husserl,
Spangler, Ernst Jünger, and Heidegger all thought so….

Nietzsche‘s influnce. Nietzsche uses the expression to break history of mankind into two or
into half. All those of us that live after Nietzsche, who have read Nietzsche “lives after him“.
In fact, it is difficut to say who in philosophy, humanities, social sciences, literature, and all
intellectuals – whoever reads Nietzsche has been influnce by him. Full stop. The rest of the
world is left: expatiation, eluciadition, hermeutical interpretation, slow-read, intense read, or
just simply to do some good old orating (and pontificate).

This is an early letter from the year 1884. Note the connection at the end with the expression
“values are devalued”.

“The beginning of his letter is about my Zarathustra, in a manner that will worry you more
than satisfy you. Sky! who knows what lies on me and what strength I need to endure with
myself! I don't know how I got there - but it is possible that for the first time the thought
occurred to me that split the history of mankind in half. This Zarathustra is nothing but a
preface, porch - I had to give myself courage, because from all over the place I was only
discouraged: courage to carry that thought! Because I am still far from being able to
pronounce and represent it. If it is true or rather: if it is believed to be true, everything changes
and turns and all previous values are devalued. –“
Letter number, 494. An Franz Overbeck in Basel <Nizza, 8. März 1884>. Nice, France.
eKGWB/BVN-1884, 494. KSB 6, page 485.

173
Nietzsche wrote in his autobiography,
“Did you understand me? - I did not say a word that I would not have said through the mouth
of Zarathustra five years ago. - The discovery of Christian morality is an event that has no
equal, a real catastrophe. Whoever enlightens them is a force majeure, a destiny - he breaks
the history of humanity in two. One lives before him, one lives after him ... The lightning of
truth hit just what was highest so far: whoever understands what has been destroyed, may see
whether he still has anything in his hands. Everything that was previously called "truth" is
recognized as the most harmful, most treacherous, most subterranean form of falsehood; the
sacred pretext to "improve" mankind as the cunning to suck life itself, to make it bloodless.
Moral as vampyrism ... Anyone who discovers morality has discovered the worthlessness of all
worthies one believes or believes in; he no longer sees anything venerable in the most
venerated, in the sacredly-conceived types of man, he sees the most fatal kind of abortions in
them, fatal, because they fascinated ... The concept of "God" invented as an antithesis to life, -
in him everything harmful, poisoning, slanderous, all mortal hostility against life brought into a
terrible unity! The notion of the "beyond," "true world," invented to devalue the one and only
world that exists-to leave no goal, no reason, no task for our earthly reality!”
Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (written in 1888, first edition published in 1908), ‘Why I
am destiny’, section 8.

From a letter to Paul Deussen.

“Finally, these two writings are only real recoveries in the midst of an immensely difficult and
decisive task, which, when understood, splits the history of mankind in half. The meaning of
these is expressed in three words: the revaluation of all values.“
eKGWB/BVN-1888, 1111 — Brief AN Paul Deussen : 14/09/1888.

From a letter to Franz Overbeck.

“Everything is easy for me; everything comes to me, although hardly anyone has had such
great things under their hands. That the first book of the revaluation of all values is finished,
ready for printing, I announce to you with a feeling for which I have no word. There are four
books; they appear individually. This time, as an old artilleryman, I perform my great gun: I
fear I will shoot the history of mankind in half.
eKGWB/BVN-1888, 1132 — Brief AN Franz Overbeck: 18/09/1888.
1132. An Franz Overbeck in Basel.

174
From a letter to Malwidea von Meysenbug.
“You will see that I have not lost my good mood in this duel. Sincerely, a Wagner belongs, in
the midst of the difficult task of my life, to the real rest. I wrote this little work in the spring,
here in Turin: meanwhile the first book of my revaluation of all values has been finished - the
greatest philosophical event of all time, with which the history of mankind breaks apart in half
... (das größte philosophische Ereigniß aller Zeiten, mit dem die Geschichte der Menschheit in
zwei Hälften auseinander bricht…). eKGWB/BVN-1888, 1126 — Brief AN Malwida von
Meysenbug: 04/10/1888.

Influnce of Nietzsche on 20th-century thought.

A short list would be:
“Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ernst Jünger, Theodor Adorno, Georg Brandes,
Martin Buber, Karl Jaspers, Henri Bergson, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Leo Strauss,
Michel Foucault, Julius Evola, Emil Cioran, Miguel de Unamuno, Lev Shestov, Ayn Rand,
José Ortega y Gasset Rudolf Steiner and Muhammad Iqbal; sociologists Ferdinand Tönnies
and Max Weber; composers Richard Strauss, Alexander Scriabin, Gustav Mahler, and
Frederick Delius; historians Oswald Spengler, Fernand Braudel, and Paul Veyne, theologians
Paul Tillich and Thomas J.J. Altizer; novelists Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Mann,
Hermann Hesse, André Malraux, Nikos Kazantzakis, André Gide, Knut Hamsun, August
Strindberg, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence and Vladimir Bartol; psychologists Sigmund Freud,
Otto Gross, C. G. Jung, Alfred Adler, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Rollo May and
Kazimierz Dąbrowski; and poet Rainer Maria Rilke.” Marlon Brando.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_and_reception_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche

For influnce in China, see the footnote (6) above.

Japan. Now the last but not the least is the special case of Professor Kanokogi Kazunobu
(1884–1949), Kyushu Imperial University, partly educated in New York city at New York’s
Union Theological Seminary, he got his Bachelor of Divinity in 1910 there; and then later
studied at Columbia University. He had John Dewey (1859–1951) as an instructor, wrote
books in German, gave lectures on Plato, fascism, totalitarianism, Pan-Asianism, exterme
right-wing views, viewed Plato‘s Republic as the way Japan should be – however, by 1910 he
was working on his Master degree at Columbia University on the Philosophy of Nietzsche.
This was to remove the liberal ideas of John Dewey, whom he now totally rejected. He went
on to study in Germany at the University of Jena with Rudolf Eucken (1846–1926). He return
to Japan and was one of leading intellectuals for the anti-democratic movement before and
after World War II. In other words, exterme right-wing, one might even say, he was the
theoretician of nationalism, fascism and totalitarianism before and after World War II in
Japan; and noted with Plato and Nietzsche in the not too distance intellectual background.

175
Back to Nietzsche, and of course, Nietzsche gets some final few words:

296
“Alas, what are you, my written and painted thoughts? It was not long ago, you were still so
colorful, young and mischievous, full of spines and secret spices, that you made me sneeze
and laugh - and now? You have already withdrawn your novelty, and some of you, I fear, are
ready to become truths: so immortal, they look so boring, so boring! And was it ever
different? What things do we write and paint, we mandarins with a Chinese brush, we
perpetuate the things which can be written, what can we draw by ourselves? Alas, only that
which will be wilted and begin to hide! Oh, always only pulling and exhausted thunderstorms
and yellow late feelings! Oh, always only birds, who flew tiredly and flees and now have their
hands ripped, with our hand! We perpetuate what cannot live and fly for a long time, weary
and dull things alone! And it is only in the afternoon that you have my written and painted
thoughts, for which alone I have colors, many colors, perhaps, many colorful tendernesses
and fifty yellows, and browns, and greens, and reds: but no one can guess from me how you
are in your morning their sudden sparks and wonders of my loneliness, my old beloved ones -
- bad thoughts!” (Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. 296, page 236).

Nietzsche said,
“A new species of philosophers comes up: I dare to baptize them with a name that is not safe.
Just as I divulge them, as they allow themselves to be guessed - for it is part of their way of
trying to remain a riddle (Räthsel) to anyone - these philosophers of the future want to have a
right (Recht), or perhaps unright (Unrecht), to be called an atttempter. This name itself is only
an attempt at last, and, if one wishes, an attemptation.” (Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a
Philosophy of the Future, part 2, #42.

Finally, Nietzsche wrote late in his productive life (age 44),

“Preface Third
Who knows how to breathe the air of my writings, knows that it is an air of height, a strong
air. You have to be made for it, otherwise there is no danger of you catching a cold. The ice is
near, the loneliness is tremendous - but how calm all things are in the light! how free you
breath! how much you feel under yourself! Philosophy, as I have hitherto understood and
lived it, is the voluntary life in ice and High Mountains - the search for everything that is
foreign and questionable in existence, everything that has been spellbound by morality so far.”
In Nietzsche’s published autobiography, Ecce Homo How one becomes what one is, (started October
15, Nietzsche’s birthday, age 44, completed in autumn 1888, first edition published in April
1908, eight years after his death (August 25, 1900).

176
Heidegger on philosophy as a standpoint:
Martin Heidegger wrote: “Yet we must heed one thing: this standpoint of freedom-from-
standpoints is of the opinion (Meinung) that it has overcome the one-sidedness and bias of
prior philosophy, which always was, and is, defined by its standpoints. However, the
standpoint of Standpointlessness (Standpunktslosigkeit) represents no overcoming
(Überwindung). In truth it is the extreme consequence, affirmation, and final stage of that
opinion concerning philosophy which locates all philosophy extrinsically in standpoints that
are ultimately right in front of us, standpoints whose one-sidedness we can try to bring into
equilibrium.” (Nietzsche Vol II, et 118, German, Vol I, p 379). There are no standpoints ---
only Standpointlessness? Heidegger is in fact on the the other side.

One of Heidegger’s in the middle of his writing on the Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory
and Theaetetus (1931-32), we find an interesting passage, where he says,
“The desire to philosophize from the standpoint of standpointlessness, as a purportedly
genuine and superior objectivity, is either childish, or, as it usually the case, disingenuous…[a
couple of sentences]. Not freedom from any standpoint (something fantastic), but the right
choice of standpoint, the courage to a standpoint, the setting in action of a standpoint and
holding out within it, is the task: a task, admittedly, which can only be enacted in philosophical
work…” (The Essence Of Truth: On Plato's Cave Allegory and Theaetetus, Continuum, 2005. et. p.
57, translation Ted Sadler). The courage of a standpoint.

Nietzsche in a telling note says:

“Against positivism, which stops at the phenomenon of "there are only facts," I would say
no, currently there are no facts, it is only interpretation. We can determine no Factum "in
itself": perhaps it is nonsense (Unsinn) to something as want <wish>. "It's all subjective," you
say, but even this is interpretation, the "subject" is not given, but rather something added and
invented and projected, stuck behind. - Is it necessary finally to put the artist still behind the
interpretation? Even this is poetry, hypothesis.

Insofar as the word "knowledge" makes sense (Sinn), the world is recognizable: but it is
different interpretable, it has no sense <meaning, Sinn> behind it, but rather many meanings
(Sinne) "perspectivism". [Translator, note the expression of ‘perspectivism’ which is very rare
in Nietzsche actually writings].

Our needs are the one to interpret the world: our instincts and their pros and cons. Each
instinct is a kind of lust for power (Herrschsucht), everyone has their perspective
(Perspektive), what it wants to impose on all other instincts as normal (als Norm)
<standard>.”
eKGWB/NF-1886, Gruppe 7 [60] . [7 = Mp XVII 3b. Ende 1886 — Frühjahr 1887].

Perspectivism and only interpretations (Nietzsche); and yet, Heidegger’s muse of philosophy
as a standpoint. Or, should it be “standpoints”? We live in a pluarist world.

177