History of Western Ideas Allied-IV

Nietzsche(Existentialism)
Previous Year Broad Questions
Courtesy- 53rd Batch, Department of English
University of Chittagong

 Evaluate Nietzsche as the representative of a Nihilistic

era?(’15)

 Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing
can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme
pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. It
draws attention to that we all are living a life of complete
nothingness and our existence is not real. A true nihilist would
believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than
perhaps an impulse to destroy. Nihilism is most often associated
with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects
would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical
convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. He
embraced nihilism through his severe attack to the belief in
Christian god. He found all sorts of principles futile because of the
nothingness of life.
 For Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the world
except what we give it. He said the era in which we are living now
is completely void. In this nihilistic era there are no built in
principles upon which we can rely. Penetrating the façades
buttressing convictions, the nihilist discovers that all values are
 baseless and that reason is impotent. “Every belief, every
considering something-true,” Nietzsche writes, “is necessarily false
because there is simply no true world”. For him, nihilism requires a
radical repudiation of all imposed values and meaning: “Nihilism is
. . . not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one
actually puts one’s shoulder to the plough; one destroys” (Will to
Power).
 The caustic strength of nihilism is absolute, Nietzsche argues, and
under its withering scrutiny “the highest values devalue
themselves. The aim is lacking, and ‘Why’ finds no answer” (Will to
Power). Inevitably, nihilism will expose all cherished beliefs and
sacrosanct truths as symptoms of a defective Western mythos.
 Having demonstrated the characteristics of nihilism, Nietzsche so
far can be considered as the representative of a nihilistic era who
efficiently represents that one.

 Prepared by- Mohammad Sabetul Islam

 Why does Nietzsche define man’s will to power as a

positive affirmation of life?(’18)

 Nietzsche saw the Christian principles as life denying as they

contradict the natural origin of morality since it requires us to first
love god before we can love anything. He blamed Christianity for
injecting god into our affections through which we subvert the
immediate and natural moral standard that involves affirming life.
By diverting our thinking toward god, we dilute our strongest and
most vital energies. Nietzsche revealed what disqualified our
religious belief was the essentially life denying negativity of
 Christian ethics. He believed that religious faith is unable to provide
a compelling vision of human destiny. It denies the fact that life is
the higher and dominating power. Nietzsche argued religious
morality is so contrary to our basic nature that its antinatural
attitude debilitates humanity and produces only botched and
bungled lives. Apart from that, he said it is unrealistic to assume
that there is only one kind of human nature whose direction can be
prescribed by one set of rules.

 Tracing the limitations of religious principles in case of attaining

positive affirmation in life, he himself proposed a positive and life
affirming concept of the superman corresponding the will to
power. The “will to power” is a central concept in the philosophy
of Friedrich Nietzsche. It is best understood as an irrational force,
found in all individuals, that can be channelled toward different
ends. It is a basic drive found in everyone, but one that expresses
itself in many different ways. Creating tables of values, imposing
them on people, and judging the world according to them, is one
noteworthy expression of the will to power. He praises the
sublimation of the will to power into creative activity. He praises
those expressions of it he views as creative, beautiful, and life-
affirming. One particular form of the will to power that Nietzsche
devotes much attention to is what he calls “self-overcoming.” Here
the will to power is harnessed and directed toward self-mastery
and self-transformation, guided by the principle that “your real self
lies not deep within you but high above you.” According to him, the
strongest and highest will to life does not find expression in a
miserable struggle for existence but in a will to power. The will to
power is not simply the will to survive. Nietzsche unearthed the
secret of a fulfilled life and that is “live dangerously”. The will to
 power enables a person to live that dangerous life. Through
assuming the will to power an individual can achieve the fullest
expression of human vitality that affirms his existence.
 Thus exposing the true nature of life denying religious principles,
Nietzsche escorts us to the will to power which is positively life
affirming.

 Prepared by- Mohammad Sabetul Islam

 What does Nietzsche mean by "will to power"?(’14)

 The will to power is one of Nietzsche's best known and most

controversial concepts. Here we will summarize Nietzsche's
writings and most relevant quotations on the will to power and
reviews how they have been understood by philosophers.
 If we discuss in details the definition of Will to Power, we can say it
via two viewpoints. Such as:
 The drive of the superman in the philosophy of Nietzsche to perfect
and transcend the self through the possession and exercise of
creative power.
 A conscious or unconscious desire to exercise authority over
others.
 The Will to Power is a central drive within human nature to
dominate one's environment. This is more than simply the Will to
survive. It is rather, an impulse to vigorously affirm all of our
individual powers. As Nietzsche says, "the strongest and highest
Will to life does not find expression in a miserable struggle for
existence, but in a Will to War. A Will to power, a Will to
overpower!"
 On the other hand, Nietzsche thinks Christianity belongs to his rival
position. Because it diverts our thinking toward God, we dilute our
strongest and most vital energies. Nietzsche admitted that the
'spiritual' people of Christianity performed invaluable services in
Europe by offering comfort and courage to the suffering. He
envisioned a new day when once again, the truly complete person
would achieve new levels of creative activity and thereby become
a higher type of person-the Superman. This new person will not
reject morality, he or she will reject only the negative morality of
the herd. Again, Nietzsche argued that the morality based on the
Will to power is only an honest version of what the slave has
carefully disguised.
 From the vantage point of the master morality, the word 'cruelty'
refers simply to the basic Will to power, which is a natural
expression of strength. People are differentiated into ranks. There
can be no equality where there are in fact different degrees of
power. Nietzsche wanted to preserve the natural distinction
between two types of people. To be sure, a higher culture will
always require a mediocre herd, but only to make possible the
development and emergence of the Superperson. If the
Superperson is to emerge, he or she must go beyond good and evil
as conceived by the lower ranks.

 Prepared by- Jishan Uddin

 Discuss Nietzsche's idea of superman.(’17)

 Superman is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In

his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche has his character
Zarathustra posit the superman as a goal for humanity to set for
itself.
 This philosophical treatise dealt with many of Nietzsche's ideas
about the relationship between morality and humanity, and caught
in the middle was the character of the superman. The superman
may not exactly be a superhero, but in Nietzsche's philosophy, this
superior man was here to save the day.
 So, what makes the superman so important to Nietzsche? Can he
leap over tall buildings? Is he faster than a speeding bullet? No, but
he can transcend 19th-century European morality.
 Nietzsche was one of the first major philosophers to explore a
philosophy we call nihilism. The nihilists believed that there were
no moral truths. Nietzsche believed that the caustic effects of
nihilism would eventually destroy all moral and religious
convictions, which would precipitate the most profound crisis in
human history. However, he also believed that the world would
eventually work through nihilism and discover the right course for
mankind, although it would come at an incredible price.
 In this worldview, the superman is the person who is able to break
from the illusion. Basically, the superman recognizes that society's
definition of morality is biased and socially constructed. So, does
this mean that the superman is amoral, or has no moral code?
Absolutely not. Rather than accept the morality dictated by
institutions like the Church, the superman creates his own morality,
 based on his own experiences, which is grounded in this secular
physical world. It is this superpower, the ability to see past the
illusion, which creates a superman and makes this person a
superior being.
 Living by his own moral code gives the superman a deep sense of
morality a steadfast purpose. In this enlightened position, the
superman is dedicated solely to the advancement and betterment
of humanity. In fact, as the superman is aware of the suffering of
existence, he is even willing to sacrifice his own self in order to help
improve humanity. Over time, he will help other people break from
the bonds of institutional morality and thus become a figure who
impacts history forever. In fact, Nietzsche defined humans as being
the link between animals and the superman.

 Prepared by- Shahadat Hossain

 What are nietzsche’s views on the ethics of

Christianity?(’17)

 In the first essay of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals (OGM),

he lays out his famous accusation: Christianity is the religion of the
downtrodden, the bullied, the weak, the poor and the slave. And
this, precisely, is why it is so filled with hatred. For there is nothing
quite as explosive as the sort of bottled up resentment that the
oppressed feels towards their oppressor.
 It's all there in the Bible. Consider Psalm 137. It begins with the cry
of an enslaved people:
 ‘By the Rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we
remembered Zion. For there our captors required of us songs, and
our tormentors, mirth, saying 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion'

 Such circumstances are a breeding ground for fantasies of violence

and revenge. And so the Psalm concludes: " ... happy shall be he
who takes your children and smashes their heads against the rock."
For Nietzsche, this frustrated anger is the essence of Christian
morality. It is the very engine of the church. Christianity is a religion
of hatred.
 Nowhere is this more obvious, Nietzsche insists, than with the
invention of the idea of hell. For hell is a fantasy of the weak that
enables them to imagine compensatory revenge against the strong.
Evidencing this, he points to Aquinas who wrote that "the blessed
in the heavenly kingdom will see the torment of the damned so that
they may even more thoroughly enjoy their own blessedness." The
whole theological architecture of heaven and hell is, for Nietzsche,
the product of "hatred" dressed up to look like love.
 But the vengefulness of the pious slave goes a great deal further
than simply twisting the idea of God into an instrument of revenge.
For Nietzsche's contention is that the very origins of morality itself
– and secular morality just as much as its Judeo-Christian
predecessor – can be understood as springing from the same
impulse.
 In a sense, Nietzsche is re-narrating the myth of the fall. In the
beginning, he says, there was nothing much wrong with the notion
of God. Yahweh represented a culture at ease with itself and its
prosperity. The festivals of religion were about exuberance, the
means by which life was to be celebrated. But then came slavery
and deportation into exile. And with this, the whole idea of God
was re-imagined. Instead of being an expression of abundant
confidence, God was transformed into a vehicle for desired
revenge.
 It was the Jews who, rejecting the aristocratic value equation (good
= noble = powerful = beautiful = happy = blessed) ventured, with
awe inspiring consistency, to bring about a reversal and held it in
the teeth of their most unfathomable hatred (the hatred of the
powerless), saying:

“Only those who suffer are good, only the poor, the powerless, the
lowly are good; the suffering, the deprived, the sick, the ugly, are
the only pious people, the only ones saved, salvation is for them
alone, whereas you rich, the noble and powerful, you eternally
wicked cruel, lustful, insatiate, godless, you will be eternally
wretched, cursed and damned. (OGM 1:7)”

 With slavery, all values are reversed. "Blessed are the poor" says
Jesus. Everything vibrant and life-affirming is redescribed as "bad"
so as to undermine the authority of the strong. Morality is a put-
down. And with this revolutionary redescription, Nietzsche
contends, humanity degrades itself. Humanity withers.

 Prepared by- Hadia Sultana

 What is nihilism? Assess Nietzsche and Sartre as nihilistic

philosopher. (’13)

 The word Nihilism derived from Latin ‘nihil’ which means 'nothing'.
Nihilism, most simply, means believing in nothing.it is a philosophy
of moral and epistemological skepticism that arose in 19th century
Russia.it is a doctrine that denies all religious and moral principles
in the belief that existence has no meaning .it believes that all
values are baseless, especially moral values and life is inherently
 and utterly meaningless. Nihilism encourages skepticism and it is
an extreme form of skepticism which denies all real existence or
possibility of an objective basis of truth. This term was famously
used by Friedrich Nietzsche to describe the disintegration of
traditional morality in western society. Though Many 19th century
philosophers saw nihilism as an approaching demon as it leads to
hopelessness, immorality, weakness and destruction,20th century
philosophers saw it as a fact of life and searched for ways to cope
with it.

 The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is often associated

with nihilism. He is known for his writings on good and evil, the end
of religion in modern society and the concept of a 'Superman’. He
is regarded as a major influence on 20th century philosophy. He is
a nihilistic philosopher. The nihilists believe in nothingism. They
believe that all values have no base and logic is impotent. According
to Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the world
except what we give it. For Nietzsche, nihilism requires a radical
rejection of all imposed values and meaning. He argues that the
world before late 19th century was bound to become nihilistic for
many years and therefore full of despair, immorality and pointless
destruction. He claims that it was probably necessary for humanity
to go through such a period in order to wipe away the irrationality
of age old traditional beliefs and eventually create better basis for
ethics and life meaning. Nietzsche’s these ideas on nihilism are
important contributions and an inspiring legacy that can help us
confront contemporary phenomena.
 Nihilism was a broad philosophy also known as existentialism. The
existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that our life has no
intrinsic meaning or value. The existentialists focused on the role
of the individual person in assigning meaning to their existence
through the act of will power. Sartre’s theory of existentialism
states that "existence precedes essence", that is only by existing
and acting in a certain way we give meaning to our lives. Sartre has
a great contribution in defining existential nihilism.so it is evident
that Sartre was an existential nihilist philosopher.
 Prepared by- Farjana Akhtar

Thanks a Ton