The Wanderer in the High Mountains

In this episode, we discuss the character of The Wanderer. The Wanderer appeared in multiple Nietzsche works, mainly during the period from Human, All Too Human, through The Gay Science. Evidently Nietzsche identified himself with this character. The wandering that Nietzsche did throughout Europe, and while hiking the Alps, paralleled the metaphor of 'philosophical wandering' in Nietzsche's work. We'll also discuss a potential inspiration for Nietzsche, in the motif of "wanderers" in German culture. The significance of philosophical wandering as Nietzsche's approach to philosophy is that Nietzsche's project ends up looking very different from that of most other philosophers. Episode art is Caspar David Friedrich's Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer.