1844–1900
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche, born in Röcken in Prussia, wrote The Birth of Tragedy (1872), The Gay Science (1882, expanded 1887), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), and On the Genealogy of Morality (1887). He attacks the idea that received moral values are simply discovered truths, and he is often recruited for the “creation” pole. That recruitment is partial. His work is not a permission slip for arbitrary preference, and it is not a clinical description of nihilism as a mood.
Also in the atlas
- The genealogy of moral values
- The revaluation of values
- Affirmation
Reading, not a syllabus ranking
- The Gay Science (1882/1887) — Includes the announcement that the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable, in a definite literary setting.
- On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) — A historical and psychological critique of guilt, ascetic ideals, and “good and evil.”
Questions for reflection
- If a moral value has a history, does that show it is not binding?
Read Nietzsche beside the meaning axis, not as a diagnosis and not as the owner of the creation pole.