Friedrich Nietzsche: biography of a vitalist philosopher

On the Genealogy of Morality, Beyond Good and Evil, Thus spoke Zarathustra... These titles are widely known worldwide due to their deep criticism of morals and philosophy of his time and his importance in the development of philosophical thought in the nineteenth centuries and XX. These are works of Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher of Prussian origin, of whom in this article we make a brief biography.

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Biography of Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844 in Röcken, a Prussian town that is now part of Germany, being the first-born of three brothers.

Son of the Lutheran pastor Carl Ludwig Nietzsche and Franziska OehlerThe first years of him were spent in a religious environment. However, when he was four years old, his father would pass away due to a neurological disease. This loss was joined by that of his brother shortly after. After these deaths, the family made up of Nietzsche, his mother, his sister, his sisters, moved to live with his grandmother and aunts in Naumburg, being protected from the magistrate Bemhard Dächsel. What happened next was a life path that spawned one of the brightest minds of his time.

Education

The famous philosopher's education began in public school. The schooling of the young man was not easy, since since childhood Nietzsche would suffer from various health problems, including headaches and vision problems. This, coupled with his serious character, made him often the object of derision among students. Despite everything, Nietzsche displayed a great ability for letters, which would end up causing him to be admitted to the prestigious Schulpforta school. In it he would receive instruction in the world of literature, performing various poetic essays.

In 1864 he began a career in Theology at the University of Bonn, but a little less than a semester later. he would abandon those studies to start those of Philology, which he would continue in Leipzig. During his studies he was inspired by Lange and Schopenhauer, inspiration that would end up leading the young man to take an interest in philosophical reflection. After a brief stint through military service that would end due to a fall from a horse, he would return to his studies and finish them in 1869.

The University of Basel, in Switzerland, offered him to work as a professor of philology even before finishing his degree, an offer that he accepted. After his transfer, he renounced his German citizenship. Later he would return to serve in the Prussian army, as a stretcher, an experience in which he contracted diseases such as diphtheria that complicated his health.

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First publications and beginnings of his philosophical position

Nietzsche would publish his first books later, receiving harsh criticism from various personalities of the time. During those years, Otto von Bismarck would end up uniting what would be called the German Empire, whose cultural development would later be criticized by Nietzsche. At this time he would make a convulsive friendship with Wagner, which would eventually break.

It is at this time that he begins to make a critique of the prevailing rationalism and a defense of instincts and emotions, making an apology for innate and instinctual. His criticism focuses on the culture of reason, static and decaying, which is opposed to biological impulses.

Based on this also criticism of morality and religion appear (focusing specifically on the Judeo-Christian vision and especially on the Church), with values ​​that assumed that the population would submit and be enslaved as with what the weak (those slaves who do not have control of their life and do not follow their strength and instincts) will dictate based on the identification of said values ​​with the goodness. The idea would arise of the need to generate new values ​​in which biological imperatives were taken into account, an idea that would end up generating the concept of superman.

Worsening of health and its most prolific stage

Nietzsche's health, afflicted with various diseases (among which syphilis was speculated), would deteriorate over time. As a result, he was forced to leave his teaching post in Basel.

Due to his health problems Nietzsche would travel frequently him to different cities with a milder climate, despite returning home from time to time to visit his family. this is the most prolific time of his in terms of publications and philosophical thought. He fell in love with Lou Andreas-Salomé and proposed to her, but was rejected.

This, together with the loss of relationships with old friends like Wagner, would lead him to an ever deeper isolation. It is at this time that he wrote "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", and "Beyond Good and Evil" one of his best known works. However, his publications never had great acceptance by society.

His sister would marry a well-known writer named Bernhard Förster and he would travel with him to Paraguay, the ideology and anti-Semitism of this being a reason for rejection for Nietzsche. In 1887 he published On the Genealogy of Morality, being in worse and worse health. However, his writings began to have increasing success and interest from the general population.

Internment and death

In 1989, at the age of forty-four, the well-known author suffered a collapse, after which he had to retire. He was admitted to a Basel asylum with symptoms that today suggest a dementia, possibly stemming from syphilis, or a possible brain tumor. His secretary Gast and his friend Overbeck (known and friend since the time in Basel), decided to publish their works "The Antichrist" and "Ecce Homo".

Nietzsche would later be taken by his mother to a clinic in Naumburg and later to his home in 1890. After she died, he moved with his sister, who had returned after becoming a widow, to Weimar. There he passed away on August 25, 1900 due to pneumonia.

Nietzsche's legacy

The legacy that Nietzsche has left is invaluable and has had great influence on the world. Aspects such as nihilism or decadence of Western thought and classical and rational philosophy, the avoidance of Dionysian desires and impulses and the pursuit of slave morality, the critique of religion as instrument of control that makes the population be slaves and submissive due to the identification of these traits and suffering as the good are elements that, although They can be controversial and difficult to interpret, they have aroused the interest of many thinkers and have inspired great works and social and social reinterpretations. policies.

An example of this can be seen in Sigmund Freud, whose works have been influenced by the critique of rationality and the defense of instinctive and innate forces.

Unfortunately, there have also been interpretations of his works with less benign purposes and consequences. Social criticism, the defense of individualism and identity, ideology and the concept of superman would be misrepresented and reinterpreted by various figures who would end up using it as the basis for some of the actions and foundations of Nazism.