Nietzsche’s philosophy
Nietzsche’s philosophy was once regarded as an “action philosophy” at the time, a philosophy that claimed to maximize personal requirements and desires. . His philosophy is disdainful and critical of everything. This is an important reason why his philosophy is appreciated by postmodernists.
Postmodernism either rejects or eliminates traditional philosophy and modern philosophy. Yet there was a soft spot for Nietzsche's philosophy, from which postmodernists absorbed everything they needed. Including the basic ideological viewpoints of Nietzsche's philosophy, and even Nietzsche's philosophical style. The dissolution tendency in Nietzsche's philosophy became the spiritual pillar of postmodernism. Nietzsche never imagined that he would become the theoretical pioneer of postmodernism.
For him, philosophical thinking is life, and life is philosophical thinking. He created a unique philosophy with different forms from the past to demonstrate his philosophical thoughts. His philosophy requires no reasoning and argument, no systematic framework, and is not a theoretical system at all. It is his direct perception of the pain and joy of life. Nietzsche, in his first academic work - "The Birth of Tragedy", had already begun his criticism of modern civilization. He pointed out that in capitalist society, despite increasing material wealth, people have not achieved true freedom and happiness. The rigid mechanical model suppresses human personality, causing people to lose their passion for free thought and the impulse to create culture. Modern culture appears so decadent. This is a disease of modern civilization, and its root cause is the atrophy of life instinct. Nietzsche pointed out that in order to cure modern diseases, we must restore human life instinct and give it a new soul to provide a new interpretation of the meaning of life. He received inspiration from Schopenhauer and believed that the essence of the world is the will of life.
Nietzsche violently exposed and criticized traditional Christian morality and modern rationality. In terms of epistemology, Nietzsche was an extreme anti-rationalist, and he made the most thorough criticism of any rational philosophy. He believes that the spiritual life of Europeans for two thousand years is centered on belief in God, and humans are God’s creations and appendages. The value of life and everything in human beings rest on God. Although the basis for God's existence has begun to disintegrate since the Enlightenment, in the absence of new beliefs, people still believe in God and worship God. Nietzsche's famous saying, "One shout - God is dead" - is a ruthless and fearless criticism of God. He said through the mouth of a madman that he was the murderer of God, pointing out that God deserved to be killed. Christian ethics constrains the human mind and suppresses human instinct. To gain freedom, God must be killed. Nietzsche believes that the decline of Christianity has its historical necessity. It transformed from the religion of the oppressed into the religion of the rulers and oppressors. Its decline is a historical necessity.
After killing God as God, we ushered in the God of capital, God incarnated by capital. Nietzsche ignored a basic fact: being enslaved by capital is not much freer than being enslaved by God. But the enlightening value of his cry "God is dead" cannot be underestimated.
Nietzsche believed that in a world without God, people have gained unprecedented opportunities and must establish new values, values ??centered on human will. For this reason, traditional moral values ??must be liquidated. Traditional moral concepts are the last cover of God. They penetrate deeply into people's daily lives and corrode people's hearts. Nietzsche claimed to be an amoralist and anti-Christian. He violently criticized Christian morality and the virtues advocated by Christianity.
Nietzsche also held a critical attitude towards modern rationality. He first attacked the rational philosophers. He pointed out that the first characteristic of philosophers is their lack of sense of history. For thousands of years, everything that philosophers have dealt with has become a conceptual mummy. The role of reason is nothing more than to freeze the flowing history and use some eternal concepts to frame living reality. The result is to stifle the process of birth and death of things and stifle life. He believes that this world is a world full of contingency, turmoil, and thus unpredictable. He said that there is no reality, everything is fluid, ungraspable, and evasive. The second characteristic of philosophers is to "reject the evidence of the senses" and reverse the real world and the imaginary world. Perceptual evidence is real and believable, it's just that lies are stuffed into it when it's processed. The third characteristic of philosophers is to confuse the beginning and the end. They deny the process of growth and evolution. The fourth characteristic of philosophers is to use the "reason" in language to force people to make mistakes.
"Is" is confused with "existence", making falsehoods appear true and truths seeming false, deceiving ignorant people. He believes that it is absurd for people from Socrates to modern people to fanatically appeal to reason. The reason why human beings advocate reason is that they expect it to bring freedom and happiness to people; however, the result is exactly the opposite. Reason is always the enemy of human instinct, causing greater suffering to people.
It is correct to criticize the fallacies brought by reason, but we cannot deny the existence of reason, its historical status and role. Rationality is the symbol of human progress and the fruit of the process of human civilization. Some outstanding philosophers in history used rational weapons to observe and understand the world. There is nothing wrong with rationality itself, and rationality cannot be denied. Without reason, humans cannot correctly understand the world and the truth. Without reason, human beings will fall into a confusing and terrible situation.
Nietzsche wants to establish a new philosophy, a philosophy that puts the will of life above reason, an irrational philosophy. As a challenge to reason, he proposed the theory of will to power. The place of God, the place of traditional metaphysics, is replaced by will to power. The core of the will-to-power theory is life-affirming and life-affirming. The will to power is not a secular power, it is an instinctive, spontaneous and irrational force. It determines the essence of life and the meaning of life. Nietzsche compared the different characteristics of will to power and reason. The characteristics of reason are: calmness, precision, logic, stiffness, and abstinence; the characteristics of will to power are: passion, desire, wildness, activity, and fighting. Nietzsche believes that the will to power originates from and returns to life, and it is the real life. Although life is short, as long as you have a strong will, a will to create, and become a spiritual strongman, you can realize your own value. The will to power, as the highest value measure, on the one hand affirms the value of life, and on the other hand it also defends the inequality in the world. In Nietzsche's view, human beings, like natural life, are divided into strong and weak ones. The strong are always in the minority, and the weak are in the majority. History and culture are created by a few strong people, and they rule the weak as a matter of course. Nietzsche overthrew the divine hierarchy and affirmed the human hierarchy.
Nietzsche also proposed his philosophy of Superman, a philosophy about constructing an ideal life. Superman is a symbol of the ideal of life, the ideal goal and realm of life pursued by Nietzsche. Nietzsche was very disappointed with modern people and modern life. He dreamed of improving people and creating new people, that is, supermen. Superman is not a specific person, but an illusory image. Superman has the momentum and style of the earth, ocean, and lightning. Nietzsche believes that Superman does not yet exist in reality, but is the ideal image of future people; Superman puts forward value goals for real life; Superman is human self-transcendence.
Nietzsche advocates that the purpose of life is to realize the will to power, expand oneself, and become a superman who can control everything. Superman is the highest value of human beings. He should despise all traditional moral values, do whatever he wants, and realize himself by enslaving the weak and the masses.
The value of Nietzsche’s voluntarist philosophy is dual. On the one hand, Nietzsche inherited the essence of the Enlightenment and reflected the awakening of modern consciousness. The positive affirmation of the value of life triggered people to think about the meaning of life and the value of life, and repositioned life; the negative criticism of instrumental rationality and industrial civilization started the modern irrational trend of thought. On the other hand, the criticism of rationality and the denial of tradition are also one-sided, which is exactly what postmodernism appreciates. His ethical thoughts reflected the interests of the emerging monopoly bourgeoisie.
The most important point in Nietzsche’s philosophy is that the mission of philosophy is to pay attention to life, give an explanation to life, give an explanation to the meaning of life, and explore the meaning of life. This has something to do with Nietzsche's reading of Schopenhauer's works. Another point of view is that Nietzsche believes that philosophy is apolitical, and philosophy and politics are two different things. Therefore, Nietzsche’s views on philosophy are firstly about life and concern for life, secondly non-political, and thirdly non-academic. Philosophy is not purely academic. Nietzsche criticized traditional philosophy. He believed that the key was that it failed to pay attention to life. He believed that the consequence of traditional philosophy was nihilism. Nietzsche believed that there is no essence behind phenomena.
Nietzsche’s influence on later generations
The influence of Nietzsche’s works on later generations is undoubtedly huge. His thought has an extremely powerful impact. It subverts Western Christian moral thought and traditional values, and reveals the spiritual crisis that mankind must face after the death of God. Jaspers said that Nietzsche and Kierkegaard brought a tremor to Western philosophy, but the final significance of this tremor has not yet been assessed.
An entire generation of thinkers and artists at the beginning of the 20th century found in Nietzsche's writings the ideas and images that inspired their most creative works. Jaspers, Sartre, Heidegger, Jack London, Foucault, Derrida, etc. are all philosophers deeply influenced by Nietzsche's thoughts, and there are also countless writers directly influenced by him: Zweig, Thomas Mann, Bernard Shaw, Hesse, Rilke, Gide, and the familiar Lu Xun.
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Objective evaluation
Lou Salomé, Paul Ree and Nietzsche If we look at it from a secular perspective, Nietzsche’s life is Unfortunately, his end was tragic. He is a typical loser: the development of his thoughts failed to achieve the expected goals; there were very few people who could understand him in the era in which he lived, and he was always surrounded by terrible loneliness; finally, the disease came slowly and quietly , even became a part of his life. Conversely, one could also say that his life and writings would be unimaginable without his illness and suffering.
However, any unprejudiced person who picks up Nietzsche's works will find them to be brilliant, dazzling and heroic. Of course, there is also a mixture of exaggeration and neurotic narcissism. In these works, Nietzsche used extraordinary courage and astonishing insight to easily overturn various accepted concepts, ridiculed all virtues, and praised all evils. Nietzsche did not establish a closed and huge philosophical system. He only wrote prose, aphorisms and aphorisms; he did not prove anything between the lines of his words, but only predicted and inspired him; but it was not with logical reasoning but with magical imagination that he Conquered the whole world; what he dedicated to mankind was not just a new philosophy, not just a poem or an aphorism, but a new faith, a new hope, a new religion. It is a pity that Nietzsche's life was too short and his experience was too simple, and he did not have time to develop his one-sided truth into wisdom. If he had lived longer, if he had received more encouragement, perhaps he would have sorted out his rough and chaotic ideas into a harmonious and beautiful philosophy.
In any case, Nietzsche’s thought is a towering milestone in modern thought. In the century after Nietzsche's death, his thoughts profoundly influenced Jaspers, Heidegger, Rilke, Hesse, Thomas Mann, Stephen George, George Bernard Shaw, Gide, and Sassett. Famous thinkers such as Te and Mallu; his works are not only famous in the German and French regions, but also spread in distant North America, South America, Asia, Oceania, and Africa.
Nietzsche Cartoon Nietzsche fearlessly opposed philosophical metaphysics and its absolute superiority in epistemology; opposed the huge rational-centered speculative system established by philosophy for thousands of years by observing the universe purely rationally and using logical reasoning procedures; He loved life, advocated bold vitality and vigorous willpower, affirmed the value of the world, and regarded nature as the only real world. He injected fresh blood into European classical philosophy and opened up a new era of classical linguistics. In this sense, he created a new era in the history of human thought. The history of philosophy can be divided into pre-Nietzsche and post-Nietzsche. After Nietzsche, the traditional philosophical system disintegrated. Philosophy changed from non-existence to existence, from heaven to earth, from magical and unpredictable, mysterious and mysterious to the infinite resonance that aroused the hearts of hundreds of millions of people.