Friedrich Nietzsche is commonly known as the Father of Existentialism but he could just as well be called the Father of Psychoanalysis or the Father of Postmodernism. Along with Marx and Freud, Nietzsche is one of the most influential thinkers in the past 200 years.
Nietzsche's ideas are famous (and due to much manipulation of his work, infamous) — the Will to Power, the Ubermensch/Overman and the Eternal Recurrence are the three great doctrines of Nietzsche's Zarathustra. They form his positive philosophy. This is the Health side of the equation.
But these positive doctrines are only way half of Nietzsche's philosophy. The other side is his critique of Christianity and of Ascetic Ideals in general, his enquiries into the origin of morality and his explorations of the crisis of Nihilism
In this brief episode we look at Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy through his distinction between Decadence and Health. This video is a taster of Nietzsche and will be followed up in a future episode by a much deeper dive.
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📚 Further Reading:
- Basic Writings of Nietzsche edited by Walter Kaufmann (contains full texts of The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo)
- The Portable Nietzsche edited by Walter Kaufmann (contains )