Nietzsche's main works. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Philosopher Who Made Himself Mad

  • Leipzig University ( )
  • Influencers Socrates , Plato , Aristotle , Epicurus , Parmenides , Heraclitus , Ancient Greek philosophy , Pascal , Voltaire , Kant , Hegel , Goethe , Schopenhauer , Wagner , Salome , Hölderlin , Dostoyevsky , Montaigne , La Rochefoucauld Influenced Spengler , Ortega y Gasset , D'Annunzio , Evola , Mussolini , Heidegger , Hitler , Scheler , Loewit , Mannheim , Tönnies , Jaspers , Berdyaev , Camus , Bataille , Junger , Benn , Buber , Deleuze , Livry

    Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche(German Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniː​tʃ​ə]; October 15, Röcken, German Union - August 25, Weimar, German Empire) - German thinker, classical philologist, composer, poet, creator of an original philosophical doctrine, which is emphatically non-academic in nature and, in part, therefore, is widespread, going far beyond the limits of scientific and philosophical community. The fundamental concept includes special criteria for evaluating reality, which cast doubt on the basic principles of existing forms of morality, religion, culture and socio-political relations and, subsequently, reflected in the philosophy of life. Being presented in an aphoristic manner, Nietzsche's writings are not amenable to unambiguous interpretation and cause a lot of controversy in assessments.

    Encyclopedic YouTube

    • 1 / 5

      Friedrich Nietzsche was born in 1844 in Röcken (near Leipzig, a province of Saxony within Prussia), the son of a Lutheran pastor, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (-). In 1846 he had a sister, Elisabeth, then a brother, Ludwig Josef, who died in 1849 six months after the death of their father. He was brought up by his mother until in 1858 he went to study at the famous Pforta gymnasium. There he became interested in studying ancient texts, made the first attempts at writing, survived desire became a musician, took a keen interest in philosophical and ethical problems, enjoyed reading Schiller, Byron, and especially Hölderlin, and was also introduced to the music of Wagner for the first time.

      Youth years

      Friendship with Wagner

      The change in Nietzsche's attitude towards Wagner was marked by the book The Casus Wagner (Der Fall Wagner), 1888, where the author expresses his sympathy for the work of Bizet.

      Crisis and recovery

      Nietzsche never enjoyed good health. From the age of 18 he began to experience severe headaches, severe insomnia, and by the age of 30 he experienced a sharp deterioration in health. He was almost blind, had unbearable headaches and insomnia, which he treated with opiates, as well as stomach problems. On May 2, 1879, he left teaching at the university, receiving a pension with an annual allowance of 3,000 francs. His later life became a struggle with the disease, despite which he wrote his works. He himself described this time as follows:

      … at thirty-six I had sunk to the lowest limit of my vitality - I was still living, but I could not see three steps ahead of me. At that time - it was in 1879 - I left my professorship in Basel, lived like a shadow in St. Moritz in the summer, and spent the next winter, the sunless winter of my life, like a shadow in Naumburg. That was my minimum: The Wanderer and His Shadow came about in the meantime. Undoubtedly, I knew a lot about shadows then ... In the next winter, my first winter in Genoa, that softening and spiritualization, which is almost due to extreme impoverishment in blood and muscles, created "Dawn". Perfect clarity, transparency, even the excess of the spirit, reflected in the named work, coexisted in me not only with the deepest physiological weakness, but also with the kurtosis of the feeling of pain. In the midst of the torment of three days of uninterrupted headaches, accompanied by excruciating vomiting with mucus, I had the clarity of a dialectic par excellence, I thought very calmly about things for which, in healthier conditions, I would not have found in myself enough refinement and calmness, would not have found the audacity of a rock climber.

      "Morning Dawn" was published in July 1881, with it a new stage in Nietzsche's work began - the stage of the most fruitful work and significant ideas.

      Zarathustra

      Last years

      The final stage of Nietzsche's work is at the same time the stage of writing works that form the mature face of his philosophy, and misunderstanding, both from the general public and close friends. Popularity came to him only in the late 1880s.

      Nietzsche's creative activity was interrupted at the beginning of 1889 due to clouding of reason. It occurred after a seizure caused by beating a horse in front of Nietzsche. There are several versions explaining the cause of the disease. Among them - poor heredity (Nietzsche's father suffered from mental illness at the end of his life); a possible case of neurosyphilis, which provoked insanity. Soon the philosopher was placed in a Basel psychiatric hospital by his friend, professor of theology, Frans Overbeck, where he remained until March 1890, when Nietzsche's mother took him to her home in Naumburg. After the death of his mother, Friedrich is unable to move or speak: he is struck by an apoplexy. The disease did not recede from the philosopher a single step until his death on August 25, 1900. He was buried in the old Rekken church dating from the first half of the 12th century. Next to him are his relatives.

      Citizenship, nationality, ethnicity

      Nietzsche is usually ranked among the philosophers of Germany. The modern unified national state called Germany did not yet exist at the time of his birth, but there was a union of German states, and Nietzsche was a citizen of one of them - Prussia. When Nietzsche received a professorship at the University of Basel, he applied for the annulment of his Prussian citizenship. The official response confirming the revocation of citizenship came in the form of a document dated April 17, 1869. Until the end of his life, Nietzsche remained officially stateless.

      According to popular belief, Nietzsche's ancestors were Poles. Until the end of his life, Nietzsche himself confirmed this circumstance. In 1888 he wrote: "My ancestors were Polish nobles (Nicki)". In one of Nietzsche's statements, he is even more assertive about his Polish origin: "I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of dirty blood, of course, without German blood". On another occasion, Nietzsche stated: “Germany is a great nation only because so much Polish blood flows in the veins of its people ... I am proud of my Polish origin”. In one of his letters he testifies: “I was brought up to attribute the origin of my blood and name to the Polish nobles, who were called Nitsky, and who left their house and title about a hundred years ago, succumbing as a result to unbearable pressure - they were Protestants”. Nietzsche believed that his surname may have been Germanised.

      Most scholars dispute Nietzsche's view of the origins of his family. Hans von Müller refuted the genealogy put forward by Nietzsche's sister in favor of a noble Polish origin. Max Ohler, custodian of the Nietzsche archive in Weimar, claimed that all of Nietzsche's ancestors bore German names, even the families of his wives. Ohler claims that Nietzsche descended from a long line of German Lutheran clergy on both sides of his family, and modern scholars consider Nietzsche's claims about his Polish origin to be "pure fiction". Colli and Montinari, editors of a collection of Nietzsche's letters, characterize Nietzsche's statements as "baseless" and " misconception". The surname itself Nietzsche not Polish, but common throughout central Germany in this and related forms, for example, Nitsche and Nitzke. The surname comes from the name Nikolai, abbreviated as Nick, under the influence of the Slavic name Nits, first acquired the form Nitsche, and then Nietzsche.

      It is not known why Nietzsche wanted to be included in a noble Polish family. According to biographer R. J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche's claims about his Polish origins may have been part of his "campaign against Germany".

      Relationship with sister

      An aphorism as its own commentary unfolds only when the reader is involved in a constant re-construction of a meaning that goes far beyond the context of a single aphorism. This movement of meaning can never end by more adequately reproducing experience life. Life, so open in thought, is proved by the very fact of reading an aphorism, outwardly unproven.

      Healthy and decadent

      In his philosophy, Nietzsche developed a new attitude to reality, built on metaphysics. "Being Becoming" rather than givenness and immutability. Within such a view true how the correspondence of an idea to reality can no longer be considered the ontological basis of the world, but becomes only a private value. Coming to the fore considerations values are generally evaluated according to their correspondence to the tasks of life: healthy glorify and strengthen life, while decadent represent sickness and decay. Any sign there is already a sign of impotence and impoverishment of life, in its fullness is always event. Uncovering the meaning behind the symptom reveals the source of the decline. From this position, Nietzsche attempts reappraisal of values, hitherto uncritically taken for granted.

      Dionysus and Apollo. Socrates problem

      Nietzsche saw the source of a healthy culture in the coexistence of two principles: Dionysian and Apollonian. The first personifies the unbridled, fatal, intoxicating, coming from the very bowels of nature. passion life, returning a person to the immediate harmony of the world and the unity of everything with everything; the second, Apollonian, envelops life "beautiful appearance of dream worlds" allowing you to put up with it. Mutually overcoming each other, Dionysian and Apollonian develop in strict correlation. Within the framework of art, the collision of these principles leads to the birth ancient Greek tragedy, on the material of which Nietzsche unfolds the picture of the formation of culture. Observing the development of the culture of Ancient Greece, Nietzsche drew attention to the figure Socrates. He claimed the possibility of comprehending and even correcting life through dictatorship reason. Thus, Dionysus was expelled from culture, and Apollo degenerated into logical schematism. The complete violent distortion is the source of the crisis of culture, which turned out to be bloodless and deprived, in particular, of myths.

      Death of God. Nihilism

      One of the most striking symbols captured and considered by Nietzsche's philosophy was the so-called death of God. It signifies a loss of confidence in supersensible grounds values, that is nihilism manifested in Western European philosophy and culture. This process, according to Nietzsche, comes from the unhealthiness of the very spirit of Christian teaching, which gives preference to the other world.

      The death of God manifests itself in the feeling that grips people homelessness, orphanhood, loss of the guarantor of the goodness of being. The old values ​​do not satisfy a person, because he feels their lifelessness and does not feel that they relate specifically to him. "God suffocated in theology, morality - in morality", writes Nietzsche, they became alien to a person. As a result, nihilism grows, which ranges from a simple denial of the possibility of any meaningfulness and chaotic wandering in the world to a consistent reassessment of all values ​​in order to return them to life service.

      eternal return

      The way in which something comes into being, Nietzsche sees eternal return: permanence in eternity is gained through the repeated return of the same, not through enduring immutability. In such a consideration, the question comes to the fore not about the cause of what is, but why it always returns this way and not another. A kind of master key to this question is the idea of will to power: such a being returns, which, conforming reality with itself, has created the preconditions for the return.

      The ethical side of the eternal return is the question of belonging to it: are you now so that you desire the eternal return of the same. Thanks to this setting, the measure of the eternal returns to each moment: what is valuable is what stands the test of eternal return, and not what can be placed in the perspective of the eternal from the very beginning. The embodiment of belonging to the eternal return is superman.

      Superman

      Superman is a man who managed to overcome the fragmentation of his existence, who regained the world and raised his gaze above its horizon. Superman, according to Nietzsche, the meaning of the earth, in it nature finds its ontological justification. In contrast to him, last person represents the degeneration of the human race, lives in complete oblivion of its essence, leaving it at the mercy of the bestial stay in comfortable conditions.

      Will to power

      The will to power is the fundamental concept that underlies all of Nietzsche's thinking and permeates his texts in every section. Being an ontological principle, at the same time it is a fundamental method of analyzing social, psychological, and natural phenomena - the angle from which the philosopher interprets their course: “What exactly will the authorities here?” - this is the question that Nietzsche implicitly asks in all his historical and historical-philosophical research. Given all of the above, it is clear that his understanding is fundamental to understanding Nietzsche's philosophy.

      From a substantive point of view, the will to power in Nietzsche's philosophy is the answer not only to the question "What is life?", but also to the question "What is being in its deepest basis?" It is thus the essence of both living and inanimate nature, including, of course, human behavior. At the same time, one should beware of understanding “power” in this phrase by analogy with social power, the power of one living being over another, since the consequences of the will to power are, among other things, altruistic motives, the will to creativity, knowledge, in general, all life phenomena that do not seem to be possible to fit into such a narrow motivation, etc. Such a simplification of this concept leads and has led to a deeply erroneous interpretation of the whole of Nietzsche's thought. As O. Yu. Tsendrovsky notes, “the key to its correct interpretation is contained in the implications of the German word Macht. Macht does not signify a possibility, a facility at our disposal, as we understand it, when we say: "I have power." The German Macht implies an actual process, it is not something that can be used now or saved for later, but something that really always, constantly manifests itself. Thus, the German Macht, especially in the context of Nietzsche's philosophy, would be better conveyed by the word "dominion". The will to power is the will to rule, to be more precise: domination itself, a ceaselessly self-fulfilling force grasped in the aspect of its expansive nature. Domination is the deepest nature of all things, the way of its everlasting existence, and not some external goal, one of many. Any setting of a goal, movement towards it is already an act of domination. non-authoritative source? () ] .

      Further, the metaphysics of the will to power presupposes the presence at the most fundamental level of two most important ethically colored oppositions. It introduces a distinction between the following modes of functioning of the will to power that determines everything: affirmation and negation, activity and reactivity. The statement expresses the expansive nature of the will to power, its initial striving for unlimited growth, development, creation. In the mode of denial - in essence, service - the will to power realizes itself through destruction, resistance. The direct expression of denial is the attitude to the destruction of anything, to destruction, ridicule, rejection (including this world in the name of underworld in Christianity).

      On the other hand, any force has the ability to function in an active and reactive mode. An active force unfolds its possibilities in all their fullness, to the limit, it fully realizes itself. The reactive mode, on the contrary, presupposes the suppression of the maximum self-realization of the available force - a process in itself necessary, but leading to pathology in the case of its dominance in life. “A reactive, or passive, mode of behavior,” writes Tsendrovsky, “separates life from its highest possibilities, suppresses activity. Therefore, it is expressed in adaptation, adjusting, inertia in relation to oneself and others: being becomes not a creative, expansive will, but a reaction, a bare maintenance of existence. Reactivity preaches humility, abstinence, non-action, obedience, renunciation of power and property, of strong feelings - all ways of desalination and bleeding. In combination with denial, it gives rise to affects of petty malice, envy, vindictiveness: suppressed reactions that have not found a way out in a full-fledged action against what caused irritation - ressentiment as Nietzsche calls it" [ non-authoritative source? () ] .

      The dominance of these attitudes, later called Nietzsche nihilism in the broadest sense of the word, is a pathology and gives rise to destructiveness in many of its psychological, social and cultural manifestations.

      Thus, the distinction between affirmation and negation, activity and reactivity is the center of gravity of the philosopher's heritage and his metaphysics of the will to power, forming its direct transition to the field of ethics. All the oppositions around which Nietzsche's writings are organized - the great and the mediocre, the noble and the low, the free mind and the bound mind, the morality of the masters and the morality of the slaves, Rome and Judea, the beautiful and the ugly, the superman and the last man - are rooted in this fundamental binary of his teachings. Only aspects of considering the initial opposition of a positive (healthy) and negative (unhealthy) way of being are changing.

      Perspectives on the female gender

      Nietzsche also paid great attention to the "women's question", with which he had an extremely controversial attitude. Some commentators call the philosopher a misogynist, others call him an anti-feminist, and still others call him a champion of feminism.

      Influence and criticism

      Beginning in the 1890s, the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov argued with Nietzsche both in the press and in his philosophical writings. On the creation of his main work on moral issues, "Justification of the Good" (1897), he was prompted by disagreement with Nietzsche's denial of absolute moral standards. In this work, Solovyov tried to combine the idea of ​​the absolute value of morality with ethics, allowing freedom of choice and the possibility of self-realization. In 1899, in the article "The Idea of ​​the Superman," he expressed regret that Nietzsche's philosophy had an impact on Russian youth. According to his observations, the idea of ​​a superman is one of the most interesting ideas that have captured the minds of a new generation. In his opinion, Marx's "economic materialism" and Tolstoy's "abstract moralism" can also be attributed to them. Like other opponents of Nietzsche, Solovyov reduces Nietzsche's moral philosophy to arrogance and self-will.

      “The evil side of Nietzscheism is striking. Contempt for weak and sick humanity, a pagan view of strength and beauty, appropriating in advance some exceptional superhuman significance - firstly, to oneself individually, and then collectively, as a selected minority of the “best”, master natures, to whom everything is allowed, since their will is the supreme law for others - this is the obvious error of Nietzscheism "

      V. S. SOLOVIEV The idea of ​​the superman // V. S. Solovyov. Collected works. SPb., 1903. T. 8. S. 312.

      Nietzsche as a composer

      Nietzsche studied music from the age of 6, when his mother gave him a piano, and at the age of 10 he already tried to compose. He continued to study music during his school and student years.

      The main influences on Nietzsche's early musical development were the Viennese Classics and Romanticism.

      Nietzsche composed a lot in 1862-1865 - piano pieces, vocal lyrics. At this time, he worked, in particular, on the symphonic poem "Ermanarich" (1862), which was only partially completed, in the form of a piano fantasy. Among the songs composed by Nietzsche during these years: "Spell" to the words of A. S. Pushkin; four songs on verses by Sh. Petőfi; “From the time of youth” to the verses of F. Rückert and “A stream flows” to the verses of K. Grott; "The Tempest", "Better and Better" and "Child in front of an extinguished candle" to the verses by A. von Chamisso.

      Nietzsche's later compositions include Echoes of New Year's Eve (originally written for violin and piano, revised for piano duet, ) and Manfred. Meditation" (piano duet, ). The first of these works was criticized by R. Wagner, and the second by Hans von Bulow. Suppressed by the authority of von Bülow, after that Nietzsche practically stopped making music. His last composition was “Hymn to Friendship” (), which much later, in 1882, he reworked into a song for voice and piano, borrowing a poem from his new acquaintance Lou Andreas von Salome “Hymn to Life” (and a few years later Peter Gast wrote an arrangement for choir and orchestra).

      Artworks

      Major works

      • "Birth tragedy, or Hellenicity and pessimism" ( Die Geburt der Tragodie, 1872)
      • "Untimely Reflections" Unzeitgemasse Betrachtungen, 1872-1876)
      1. "David Strauss as Confessor and Writer" ( David Strauss: der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller, 1873)
      2. "On the benefits and harms of history for life" ( Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben, 1874)
      3. "Schopenhauer as an educator" ( Schopenhauer als Erzieher, 1874)
      4. "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" ( Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, 1876)
      • “Human, too human. A book for free minds" ( Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, 1878). With two additions:
        • "Mixed opinions and sayings" ( Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche, 1879)
        • "The Wanderer and His Shadow" ( Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, 1880)
      • "Morning Dawn, or Thoughts on Moral Prejudices" ( Morgenrote, 1881)
      • "Merry Science" ( Die frohliche Wissenschaft, 1882, 1887)
      • “Thus said Zarathustra. A book for everyone and for for anyone” ( Also sprach Zarathustra, 1883-1887)
      • “Beyond side good and evil. Prelude to philosophy of the future" ( Jenseits von Gut und Böse, 1886)
      • “On the genealogy of morality. Polemic essay "( Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887)
      • "Casus Wagner" ( Der Fall Wagner, 1888)
      • "The twilight of idols, or how philosophize with a hammer" ( Gotzen-Dämmerung, 1888), the book is also known as The Fall of the Idols, or How You Can Philosophize with a Hammer.
      • "Antichrist. Curse Christianity" ( Der Antichrist, 1888)
      • "Ecce Homo. How they become themselves" ( Ecce Homo, 1888)
      • "Will to power" ( Der Wille zur Macht, 1886-1888, 1st ed. 1901, 2nd ed. 1906), a book compiled from Nietzsche's notes by editors E. Förster-Nietzsche and P. Gast. As M. Montinari proved, although Nietzsche planned to write the book “The Will to Power. The experience of reassessing all values ​​"( Der Wille zur Macht - Versuch einer Umwertung aller Werte), which is mentioned at the end of the work "On the Genealogy of Morals", but left this idea, while the drafts served as material for the books "The Twilight of the Idols" and "Antichrist" (both written in 1888).

      Other works

      • "Homer and Classical Philology" ( Homer und die klassische Philologie, 1869)
      • "On the future of our educational institutions" ( Uber die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten, 1871-1872)
      • "Five prefaces to five unwritten books" ( Funf Vorreden zu funf ungeschriebenen Büchern, 1871-1872)
      1. "On the pathos of truth" ( Uber das Pathos der Wahrheit)
      2. "Thoughts about the future of our educational institutions" ( Gedanken über die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten)
      3. "Greek State" Der griechische Staat)
      4. "The Relationship Between Schopenhauer's Philosophy and German Culture" ( Das Verhältnis der Schopenhauerischen Philosophie zu einer deutschen Cultur)
      5. "Homeric competition" ( Homers Wettkampf)
      • "On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense" ( Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn, 1873)
      • "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of Greece" ( Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen, 1873)
      • "Nietzsche against Wagner" ( Nietzsche contra Wagner, 1888)

      Juvenilia

      • "From my life" ( Aus meinem Leben, 1858)
      • "About Music" ( Uber Music, 1858)
      • "Napoleon III as President" ( Napoleon III als Praesident, 1862)
      • "Fatum and History" ( Fatum und Geschichte, 1862)
      • "Free Will and Fate" ( Willensfreiheit und Fatum, 1862)
      • "Can an envious person really be happy?" ( Kann der Neidische je wahrhaft glücklich sein?, 1863)
      • "About moods" ( Uber Stimmungen, 1864)
      • "My life" ( Mein Leben, 1864)

      Cinema

      • In Liliana Cavani's film "Beyond side good and evil" (English) Russian(ital. "Al di là del bene e del male", ) Nietzsche embodies Erland Józefson ( Lu Salome- Dominik Sanda, Paul Reyo- Robert Powell, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche- Virna Lisi, Bernard Forster (German) Russian - Umberto Orsini (Italian) Russian).
      • In the biopic Julio Bressana (port.) Russian"Days Nietzsche in Turin" (English) Russian (
      Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm was born in 1844 near Leipzig. His father was a Lutheran pastor and died when Friedrich was five years old. His mother raised him and her youngest daughter alone.

      From 1858 he studied at the Pfort Gymnasium, studied the texts of ancient times, was interested in philosophy and tried to write. In 1862 he entered the University of Bonn, studying theology and philology. His mentor was Friedrich Ritschl, who moved to Leipzig. Nietzsche followed suit. As a student, Nietzsche became a professor of classical philology at the University of Basel.

      Defiantly renounced the citizenship of Prussia, which is why in the Franco-Prussian war he could only serve as an orderly. The health of the thinker was weak, so contact with the wounded led to the defeat of the gastrointestinal tract and diphtheria. In 1889, the philosopher had a clouding of reason, and later he was paralyzed. Friedrich Nietzsche died in 1900.

      Philosophical ideas

      Nietzsche's acquaintance with Wagner in 1868 opened for him new world: friends were fond of ancient Greek culture and the ideas of Schopenhauer. Later, Nietzsche breaks with Wagner, after which the stage of the philosopher's passion for history, mathematics, chemistry, and economics begins.

      Friendship with Lou Salome inspires Nietzsche to create the most significant work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", in which the philosopher reveals the idea of ​​the superman. Other important ideas of Nietzsche are the death of God as an expression of a moral crisis and the eternal return as a way of gaining being.

      In 1886-1888. The Will to Power is published, a book compiled from Nietzsche's notes. The philosopher considered this concept the engine human activity.

      Many books were published under the control of the thinker's sister Elisabeth, and in 1895 Nietzsche's works became her property.

      Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher and poet. Born in the village of Röcken near Lützen (Saxony) on October 15, 1844. His father and both grandfathers were Lutheran priests. The boy was named Friedrich Wilhelm after the reigning king of Prussia. After the death of his father in 1849, he was brought up in Naumburg on the Saale in the house where his younger sister, mother, grandmother and two unmarried aunts lived. Later, Nietzsche began to attend the famous old boarding school Pfort, and then studied at the universities of Bonn and Leipzig, where he delved into the Greek and Latin classics. In an old bookshop in Leipzig, he once accidentally discovered the book "The World as Will and Representation" German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, which made a strong impression on him and influenced his future work.

      In 1869, Nietzsche, who had already published several scientific articles but did not yet have a doctorate, was invited to take the chair of classical philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Having become a professor, Nietzsche also received Swiss citizenship; however, during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, he signed up for service in the Prussian army as an ordinary orderly. Having seriously undermined his health, he soon returned to Basel, where he resumed his teaching activities. He became a close friend of the composer Wagner, who then lived in Tribschen.

      Books (28)

      Full composition of writings. In 13 volumes. Volume 1. Part 1

      The birth of tragedy. From the legacy of 1869-1873.

      The first semivolume of the first volume of the complete works of F. Nietzsche includes the book "The Birth of Tragedy" (in a new edition of G. Rachinsky's translation), as well as articles from the legacy of 1869-1873, thematically related mainly to antiquity, ancient Greek philosophy, mythology, music, literature and politics.

      Full composition of writings. In 13 volumes. Volume 1. Part 2

      Untimely thoughts. From heritage (works of 1872-1873).

      The second flight of the first volume of the complete works of the German thinker F. Nietzsche included all four of his “Untimely Reflections”, as well as lectures “On the Future of Our Educational Institutions” and other works from the heritage of 1872-1873, devoted to the problems of cognition and culture.

      For many readers of Nietzsche, not only the very range of ideas revealed in these texts, but also how relevant they are, for all their polemical sharpness, turn out to be relevant in today's world can become a discovery.

      Three of the four "Untimely Reflections" are presented in new translations, some works are printed in Russian for the first time, previously published translations are checked against the original and substantially edited.

      Full composition of writings. In 13 volumes. Volume 3

      The third volume of the complete works of the German thinker F. Nietzsche includes his key works "Morning Dawn" and "Merry Science", as well as poems from the "Messinian Idylls" cycle.

      Previously published translations by V. Bakusev ("Morning Dawn") and K. Svasyan ("Merry Science") are given in a new edition.

      Full composition of writings. In 13 volumes. Volume 9

      Drafts and sketches 1880-1882

      The ninth volume of the complete works of F. Nietzsche contains drafts and other notes relating to the period 1880-1882.

      First of all, these are fragments related to the work of the philosopher on "Dawn" and "Merry Science". Among the drafts and notes of 1881 are extremely important fragments for understanding Nietzsche's philosophy, devoted to the eternal return and the problems of knowledge.

      Part of the volume consists of notes made by Nietzsche while reading the works of Descartes and Spinoza (in the presentation of K. Fischer), B. Pascal, St. Mill, G. Spencer, R. W. Emerson, as well as works of art by French authors (especially Stendhal and the Comtesse de Remusat).

      Full composition of writings. In 13 volumes. Volume 11

      Drafts and sketches 1884-1885

      The eleventh volume of the complete works of F. Nietzsche contains drafts and other notes relating to the period 1884-1885.

      First of all, these are fragments related to Nietzsche's work on the fourth (final) book "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", and the new edition of "Human, Too Human", as well as on "Beyond Good and Evil" and a collection of poems, subsequently not published.

      Another group consists of notes made while reading works of art (A. de Custine, O. de Balzac, the Goncourt brothers, E. Renan, Stendhal, P. Merime, Goethe and many others) and scientific works (G. Teichmüller, E. von Hartmann, P. Deissen, G. Oldenberg).

      Wagner and Nietzsche's central themes of will to power and eternal return deserve special mention.


      The work of Friedrich Nietzsche, "Antichrist" was created in 1888, extremely fruitful for the German philosopher. In it, he addresses those who are capable of being "honest in intellectual things to the point of cruelty", for only such readers are able to endure the "seriousness and passion" with which Nietzsche smashes Christian values ​​and overthrows the very idea of ​​Christianity.

      Genealogy of morality

      The Genealogy of Morals was conceived by Friedrich Nietzsche as an appendix to his work Beyond Good and Evil, published in 1886.

      The external reason for writing the "Genealogy of Morals" was the wave of rumors that hit the author in connection with a previous work in which Nietzsche tried to formulate the principles of a new moral behavior that remains moral, even without being connected with the supernatural.

      In Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, with his characteristic paradoxical thought and depth psychological analysis considers the history of the origin of prejudices associated with the "God-givenness" of morality as such.

      David Strauss, confessor and writer

      This essay is the first in Nietzsche's plan, immediately after the publication of The Birth of Tragedy, a series of cultural criticism essays under the title Untimely Meditations.

      Nietzsche's original plan covers twenty themes, or, more precisely, twenty variations on a single cultural-critical theme. Over time, this plan was either reduced (to thirteen), or increased (to twenty-four). Of the planned series, only four essays were completed: "David Strauss, confessor and writer", "On the benefits and harms of history for life", "Schopenhauer as an educator", "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth".

      Evil Wisdom. Aphorisms and sayings

      The book includes aphorisms and sayings of Friedrich Nietzsche.

      "... An exalted person, seeing the sublime, becomes free, confident, wide, calm, joyful, but the absolutely beautiful shocks him with his appearance and knocks him down: before him he denies himself ..." (Nietzsche)

      Untimely Reflections

      The grandiose plan of Friedrich Nietzsche - a series of twenty cultural criticism essays under the general title "Untimely Reflections" - was eventually implemented by him in the form of four essays: "David Strauss, Confessor and Writer", "On the Benefits and Harms of History for Life", "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth", "Schopenhauer as an educator".

      This is one of the first works of Nietzsche, which determined his further development in the spirit of irrationalism and reflected two passionate intellectual passions of the philosopher: the image of Wagner and the philosophy of Schopenhauer.

      The book became a bold claim of the young Nietzsche for his own, original - sometimes scandalous - and the deepest understanding of various philosophical and aesthetic topics.

      Nietzsche: Pro et contra

      The purpose of the collection is to present the Russian image of Nietzsche as he was perceived and entered into the national cultural tradition at the dawn of the 20th century.

      The book consists of essays by venerable Russian philosophers and writers of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which have become classics of Russian Nietzsche studies. The anthology contains various, sometimes opposite, approaches, assessments and interpretations of the work of the German philosopher.

      The birth of tragedy from the spirit of music

      "... but those who would see in this coincidence the existence of a contradiction between patriotic excitement and aesthetic sybaritism, between courageous seriousness and a cheerful game, would fall into error; on the contrary, when they actually read this book, it will become amazingly clear to them how strictly German the problem we are dealing with here, which we have placed right at the center of German hopes, as a point of apogee and a turning point ... "


      In this work, Nietzsche develops an impressive picture of the continuing influence on thinking, on humanity in general, of the world of the Greek gods.

      Two of them - Apollo and Dionysus, are for Nietzsche the personification of the irreconcilable opposition of two principles - Apollonian and Dionysian. The first of them is the world of dreams, beauty, perfection, but above all orderliness. Dionysian is barbaric, returning back to nature, inherent in the individual, who feels himself a work of art, correspondingly violating every measure.

      Collection of books

      Ecce Homo, how to become oneself
      Antichrist. Curse Christianity
      fun science
      Will to power. The experience of reassessing all values
      Evil wisdom (Aphorisms and sayings)
      Selected poems
      To the genealogy of morality
      Case Wagner
      Untimely Reflections - "David Strauss, Confessor and Writer"
      Untimely reflections - "On the benefits and harms of history for life"
      Untimely Reflections - "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth"
      Untimely reflections - "Schopenhauer as an educator"
      About the future of our educational institutions
      Songs of Zarathustra
      On the other side of good and evil
      The Birth of Tragedy, or Hellenism and Pessimism
      Mixed opinions and sayings
      The wanderer and his shadow
      Twilight of idols, or how people philosophize with a hammer
      Thus spoke Zarathustra
      Dawn, or the thought of moral prejudice
      Human, too human

      Mixed opinions and sayings

      Every person striving for knowledge of the world sooner or later turns to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche.

      This book contains the sayings of the great German thinker. They make you take a fresh look at what has long seemed known and beyond doubt.

      Works in 2 volumes. Volume 1

      Works in 2 volumes. Volume 2

      The book of one of the largest representatives of German existentialism, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche's paradoxical logic, characteristic set means of expression, requiring close study for themselves, lead the thoughtful reader to the borderline experience of human existence.

      Friedrich Nietzsche's two-volume book was originally planned in the Philosophical Heritage Library, but the "philosophical" discussions around the word "heritage" pushed Nietzsche out of the Library - now he finds his rightful place in it.

      In the town of Recken near the city of Lützen in Germany, in the family of a Lutheran pastor. His birthday coincided with the birthday of King Frederick William IV, so the boy was named after him.

      Nietzsche wrote his first poems and compositions at the age of ten. In 1858 he entered the Naumburg school in Pfort. In 1864-1868 he studied philology in Boine and Leipzig. From 1869 to 1879 he was professor of classical philology at the University of Basel. Participated as a volunteer in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), was a nurse. Having seriously undermined his health, he soon returned to Basel, where he resumed his teaching activities. Nietzsche spent the following years mainly in Switzerland and Italy.

      Under the influence of the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and the aesthetic ideas and art of Richard Wagner, Nietzsche moved from classical philology to philosophy.

      There are several main stages in Nietzsche's philosophical evolution: the romanticism of the young Nietzsche, when he is entirely under the influence of the ideas of Schopenhauer and Wagner; the stage of so-called positivism, associated with disappointment in Wagner and a sharp break with the ideal of the artist, when Nietzsche turns his gaze to the "positive" sciences - natural science, mathematics, chemistry, history, economics; the period of the mature Nietzsche or Nietzsche proper, imbued with the idea of ​​"will to power". In turn, the work of the mature Nietzsche, from the point of view of the topic and the order of the problems he considers, can be represented as follows: a) the creation of an affirmative part of the doctrine by developing a cultural and ethical ideal in the form of the idea of ​​the "superman" and the "eternal return"; b) the negative part of the doctrine, expressed in the idea of ​​"revaluation of all values."

      In his first major work, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872), Nietzsche developed the ideas of a typology of culture, continuing the traditions outlined by Friedrich Schiller, Friedrich Schelling and the German romantics, but giving his own, original interpretation of Greek culture, in which, in his opinion, the three most important beginnings, then inherent in any European culture, were fully expressed: Dionysian, Apollonian and Socratic. The work ends with the philosopher's hope for the revival of the tragic age with its Dionysian art, which has become a kind of symbol of vitality. Here, Nietzsche formulates the main problem of his whole life and philosophy, which will then find the most complete embodiment in the work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" - how, in what way to create such a culture, obeying which a person could ennoble his inner world and educate himself.

      At the second stage of his work, the philosopher devoted all his energies to the study of the sciences of man ("Human, too human", 1874; "Morning Dawn", 1881; "Merry Science", 1882).

      Nietzsche tried to bring together his most significant conclusions in the book "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (1883-1884). In this book, Nietzsche first advanced the theory of the superman (Übermensch) and the will to power; further developed his ideas in the works "Beyond Good and Evil" (1886) and "On the Genealogy of Morals" (1887).

      As a cultural and ethical ideal, Nietzsche puts forward the image of the superman, aestheticized by him and enclosed in an artistically finished form. Superman is a powerful man life force, powerful instincts, the Dionysian principle has not been extinguished or suppressed in him.

      The only representatives of true humanity are, according to Nietzsche, only philosophers, artists and saints. Every ordinary person, according to the philosopher, should look at himself as a failed product of nature and try to educate himself as a philosopher, artist or saint.

      All whom Nietzsche admired were people of exceptional intelligence and creative power, they were passionate natures who were able to put their passion at the service of creativity. At the end of The Twilight of the Idols (1888), Goethe is cited as an example of the superman. Another such example for Nietzsche was Leonardo da Vinci.

      Nietzsche's struggle for the liberation of people from the power of spirits and social authorities entered the history of culture under the slogan of "revaluation of values ​​that were hitherto." It was this struggle that made Nietzsche one of the most brilliant singers of European nihilism. All the works written by him after "Zarathustra" are such a "reappraisal".

      The study of philosophy, Christian religion and ascetic morality leads the philosopher to the conclusion that they separate a person from the origins of true existence, from life itself. The path that European humanity took as a result is therefore fraught with a number of consequences that Nietzsche prophetically foreshadows to his contemporaries, lifting the veil of the European future: the collapse of European spirituality and the devaluation of its values, the "revolt of the masses", totalitarianism and the reign of "the coming boor" with his leveling of man under the flag of universal equality of people. Overcoming nihilism can only be a reassessment of all values ​​and the creation of new ones.

      The central concept in the philosophy of the late Nietzsche was the concept of "will to power", most fully set forth in his work "The Will to Power" (1886-1888). The will to power is interpreted by Nietzsche as the principle of all that exists. He seeks confirmation of his thought in any material of analysis available to him: in philosophy, religion, art, psychology, politics, natural science, up to everyday life.

      According to Nietzsche, the will to power finds its expression in every human activity; he even suggested that it could be the energy basis of the entire cosmos as a whole. Nietzsche did not call for the pursuit of power, he spoke of honesty with himself and turned to examples of "superhuman" strength, embodied in people like Goethe and Leonardo, as opposed to the "human, all too human" strength of military despots.

      In 1889 creative activity Nietzsche broke off due to mental illness.

      Nietzsche's ideas had a huge impact on modern philosophy. No author has been quoted as often as Nietzsche. Many pages of works or entire books by Semyon Frank, Nikolai Berdyaev, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and other prominent philosophers are devoted to the analysis of his legacy, polemics with his prophecies, and are permeated with rejection of his ideas or admiration for them.

      The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti

      Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

      German philosopher. Born in the family of a village pastor in the small village of Rekken on the border of Prussia and Silesia. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered a prestigious vocational school near Naumburg - a closed educational institution for children from aristocratic families. There he wrote his first composition - "On Music", which immediately allowed him to be nominated among the best students.

      Then he continues his education at the Universities of Bonn and Leipzig. Already his student scientific work were so interesting in terms of content and depth of analysis that they attracted the attention of professors.

      After graduating from university, he is offered a professorship classical philosophy Basel University. Soon, the young scientist was awarded a Ph.D. degree without a preliminary dissertation defense, based only on journal articles.

      While still at the university, Nietzsche met the great German composer R. Wagner. Wagner's music made the same overwhelming impression on Nietzsche as Nietzsche's compositions on Wagner. Although Nietzsche entered the history of world culture primarily as a philosopher, he himself considered himself a musician. Even Nietzsche once wrote about his own compositions that this is “music accidentally recorded not with notes, but with words.” Passion for music arose from his early childhood and passed through his whole life. But it was not just a thirst to compose or listen - Nietzsche was a musician in a different, broader sense of the word: music for him was synonymous with the highest beginning in art.

      During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Nietzsche managed to be sent to the front as an orderly, but almost immediately after his arrival he fell ill and ended up in the hospital. Nietzsche, who did not recover from his illness, had to leave teaching.

      The more his mental illness progressed, the more fiercely Nietzsche resisted it and the more cheerful his writings and letters became. Suffering from an illness, he nevertheless writes a book with an amazing title - "Merry Science", and after it - the musical composition "Hymn to Life". These works became a kind of prologue to one of his main works - "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".

      For the last nine years, Nietzsche could no longer work and spent the most stubborn struggle with the disease. Died in Weimar.

      P - to dream