Friedrich Nietzsche's Influence On Nihilism

Words: 1149
Pages: 5

Background

Friedrich Nietzsche, born in 1844 and died in 1900, was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critique of culture, becoming one of the most-influential of all modern thinkers. Throughout his active years of career, Nietzsche tried to unmask the motives behind traditional western religion, morality, and philosophy that widely affected generations of philosophers, theologians, psychologists, poets, playwrights and novelists. Nietzsche was Europe’s most celebrated intellectuals after his death, following his idea of consequences of the triumph of the enlightenment’s secularism he expressed to religion. Although Nietzsche was against nationalism, anti-Semitism, and power politics, his name was later invoked by fascists to advance further on the very ideas he was against (Magnus, 2015).

The Influence of Nihilism
…show more content…
This idea is meant to answer the question of existence by basing its answer on extreme pessimism in a meaningless universe. The basic question of existence is shed light upon by philosophers who have the license to speculate about anything that science can’t and won’t achieve. Such questions go far and beyond our limits of comprehension and may range from metaphysics to morality. Our mere presence in this world is too bizarre for words. Our daily experiences cause us to take life for granted but every once in a while we are cajoled with questions that seek to find out the profound state of existential awareness, that is, why are all these things in the universe? Why are these things governed by strict laws? Do we have free will? And why does anything exist at