Walking the Tightrope

Julian Young’s philosophical biography of Nietzsche gives good context for Fritz’s body of thought in 1882, ten years after publishing his first metaphysical affirmation . “ The Gay Science is about everything under the sun. There is, however, a central argument which, in spite of its aphoristic formulation, is remarkably, even rigorously, systematic.” (page 326) “Nietzsche’s first five books, the ‘Bayreuth” works , were written for the (of course literate) world at large, were contributions to the culture wars of the times. And some of them were indeed, wholly or in part, rants…. By Human, All-Too-Human , he had given up writing for ‘the people’ at large, writing now, explicitly, ‘for free spirits’ alone. These remain the target audience in The Gay Science . “ The Gay Science’s central argument can be divided, it seems to me, into three stages. First, it develops a general account of what it is to be a ‘thriving’ or ‘people’, a general theory of cultural ‘health’. This, theory of ...

Many of the more contemporary translators of The Gay Science prefer to use Nietzsche’s other intended title for the work, The Joyous Science . This is in some measure due to how the word “gay” is now commonly accepted in western culture, as homosexual. Regardless of which word you use, however, part of Nietzsche’s intent was to contrast the title against Thomas Carlyle’s famous phrase (at the time) in classifying economics as " The Dismal Science " . This in and of itself can be seen as rather humorous and I’m sure Fritz chuckled at his parody. Rudiger Safranski offers another interesting glimpse by a prominent Nietzsche scholar into The Gay Science . His perspectives integrate Nietzsche’s thought with his private life, thus reinforcing the important distinction that Nietzsche’s rational thinking was actually applied to his manner or style of Being. (Nietzsche doesn’t use the word “being,” that’s my projection.) “He composed it in a state of bliss. Weeks would pass that we...

The final proofs for The Gay Science were completed mid-June 1882 at Naumberg based upon Nietzsche’s work in Genoa and Messina. The book was published in August. It is traditionally seen as a transitional work, while remaining grouped with HH and Daybreak overall. But, in this work Nietzsche is much bolder and extravagant with his expression, reflecting the happy freedom in which he felt himself enwombed. Here is the first large-scale example of Nietzsche being outrageous in his acclamations, what he would call philosophizing “with a hammer” in a later work. “God is dead.” (from aphorism 108) There is probably no more famous quote or idea in all of Nietzsche’s writings. It easily ranks with Rene Descartes’ assertion “I think, therefore, I am” as one of the more commonly known contentions among those comparative few of us that know anything at all about the history of western philosophy. Nietzsche’s most infamous formulation in the book is also one of his most misunderstood. “Nietzs...

Nietzsche began taking notes for Morgenrote II during that first summer at Sils-Maria. These notes often reflect the inspired happiness of a free spirit. The intimate gaiety welling up in him became the basis for the title of his next great philosophic work, after he had given up on the idea of a sequel to Daybreak . The foundation for his happiness, however, lies in a singular idea that came to him one day while hiking in August 1881. Weather permitting, Fritz hiked several hours a day in the clean mountain air. What came to Fritz as he walked by a boulder along Lake Silvaplana was the idea and experience of “ the eternal return of the same .” A couple of scattered aphorisms touch on the basics of this concept in The Gay Science and I will discuss it in a later post. For now, he chose to be mysterious with his friends about his revolutionary philosophical idea. But, it filled him with extraordinary motivation and joy. In the world of Nietzsche scholarship there is disagreement abou...

“We have to learn to think differently – in order that at last, perhaps very late on, we attain even more: to feel differently .” ( Daybreak , from Aphorism 103) Nietzsche’s self-creation, the triumph of Becoming in an amoral universe indifferent to human Being, has some universal characteristics. First of all, it is not universal in the sense of being exactly the same for every person. Each individual must find their own way, as long as that way does not rely upon certain misguided traditions. “ Insofar as the individual is seeking happiness, one ought not to tender him any prescriptions as to the path to happiness: for individual happiness springs from one’s own unknown laws, and prescriptions from without can only obstruct and hinder it.” (from Aphorism 108) Secondly, as we have seen, self-creation takes place within a complexity of pre-conscious, instinctual drives that motivate human behavior. Thirdly, self-creation is inherently an intimate path of reflective living that shuns...

Daybreak is devoted to several major topics and a plethora of minor ones. It is a fine example of Nietzsche’s still early (philosophically speaking) expansive mind toying with a wide range of ideas. Among them… Morality is custom. "Truth" becomes accepted not because it is inherently true, but rather because whatever the claim of truth is gets ingrained over generations of consistent cultural use. All great men, by contrast, are considered evil to begin with because they advocate a way of life that challenges custom to some degree. We touched on this in the previous post. Modern society built around a system of mass commerce is a threat to our humanity. “To the devil with setting a price on oneself in exchange for which one ceases to be a person and becomes a part of a machine! Are you accomplices in the current folly of the nations – the folly of wanting above all to produce as much as possible and to become as rich as possible?” (from Aphorism 206) In this regard, although...

The title Morgenrote is translated more ways than any other work by Nietzsche. It is known in English as The Dawn of Day , The Dawn , Dawn , and Daybreak , among others. But, its literal translation is “Morning Glow”. This is noteworthy because Nietzsche meant for the book to be about a new beginning, a fresh start, not metaphysically, but intimately. The "morning glow” is more than just the sun rising, it is the feeling a human being gets from the sun rise. So, the title is meant to be read on several levels, connecting the vast possibilities of new ideas and experiences of the universe and humanity with the inspired moment an individual might feel in while basking the glow of morning. As usual, much of the book was conceived during hikes through shaded terrain. Nietzsche jotted down the most basic ideas on a pocket notepad for fleshing out later. His eyes during this time still permitted a good deal of reading, though this would soon change. “His long, lonely walks through the ...

Fritz ended his professorship at Basel as sick and broken as he had ever been. He first returned home to his sister’s and mother’s care. The family, still slightly strained over Fritz’s unchristian thinking, nevertheless remained on intimate, friendly terms. Fritz thought of becoming his mother’s gardener in the autumn of 1879. One can reasonably assume that Fritz got his hands dirty with at least some minor tending of the soil and shrubs of his mother’s home in Naumberg. He took a liking to it, but it was a fleeting thought for such a restless mind hungry to express itself. “’My existence is a fearful burden,’ Nietzsche wrote to his doctor, Otto Eiser of Frankfort am Main, in January 1880: ‘I should have thrown it off long ago had I not been making the most instructive tests and experiments in the intellectual-moral field precisely in this condition of suffering and almost complete renunciation – this joy in seeking for knowledge carries me to heights where I overcome all torments and...

Volume Two of HH is divided into two parts. “Assorted Opinions and Maxims” and “The Wanderer and His Shadow.” Both of these “post-initial printing” thoughts were published separately. Both contain a great deal of inspired optimism and belief that human progress. Nietzsche never waivered from this basic sense of wonder about the possible future of humanity even as his critique of humanity became massive and catastrophic. This was not a contradiction in the mind of Nietzsche …it was and is a balancing act. There exists a hopeful Nietzsche that rarely gets mentioned but is fundamental to his philosophy. Fritz became a much heavier and harsher critical philosopher but he remained steadfast in the belief that the human experience of meaningful joy is possible and, in fact, is necessary. From Aphorism 99, Volume 2, Assorted Opinions and Maxims – “ The poet as signpost to the future . – That poetic power available to men today which is not used up in the depiction of life ought to be dedicate...