Nietzsche

Announcing "God is dead" is not atheism. It reports an event: humanity has crossed from a world God organized into one without him, and we ourselves did the killing.

Put simply Nietzsche: saying "God is dead" is not saying there is no God. It reports that something has happened: we have moved from a world God gave order to into one without him, and we killed him.

Where to read it Nietzsche, The Gay Science §125.

What dies with God is arguably not any being, physical or metaphysical, nor one religion's creed. The word names a belief that reality has order, purpose and wholeness.

Put simply Nietzsche's "God" arguably is not a being of any kind, nor one religion's beliefs. The word stands for the belief that reality has order and purpose and makes sense as a whole.

Sooner or later everyone concludes that the harmonious world where contradictions resolve, Hegel's end of history, is never coming. Unity cannot be found: life is nothing but difference.

Put simply Nietzsche: sooner or later we all realize that a harmonious world where every conflict is resolved, the end of history Hegel promised, is never coming. There is no unity to be found; life is all difference.

Nihilism is simply another name for the death of God: the crisis in which our supreme values become worthless and the principles that once structured reality no longer do.

Put simply Nietzsche: "nihilism" is another name for the death of God. It is the crisis that comes when our highest values lose their worth and the principles that once ordered reality stop doing so.

No replacement God can end the nihilist crisis, and every such attempt fails, because wanting an ordering principle is where the crisis began: the disorder has no real cure.

Put simply Nietzsche: the crisis cannot be solved by putting a new God in the old one's place. Every such attempt fails, because wanting something to order everything is where the crisis began. There is no real cure.

Other readings Bernard Reginster (The Affirmation of Life, 2006) reads Nietzsche's philosophy as aimed at overcoming nihilism, through a revaluation of values that affirms life, suffering included.

An excess of history sickens us: awareness of the past, and of its great figures, makes us feel small. Only the strong, with abundant "plastic power," can bear much history.

Put simply Nietzsche: too much history makes us sick. Knowing the past and its great figures makes us feel small. Only the strong can bear a lot of history; he calls the strength they need "plastic power".

Hegel's philosophy, by crowning the belated present as the goal of all history, deifies history and sets it, as "the sole sovereign power," in place of art and religion.

Put simply Nietzsche on Hegel: by treating our own late age as the goal all history was heading for, Hegel turns history into a god. It becomes "the sole sovereign power", taking the place of art and religion.

The revered virtues may owe their worth to being "insidiously related, tied to, and involved with" their wicked opposites, perhaps even sharing one essence with them: good and wicked, true and false, come together.

Put simply Nietzsche: perhaps the virtues we revere get their worth from being secretly tied to their wicked opposites, maybe even being the same thing at bottom. Good and wicked, true and false, belong together.

Suffering is not wholly negative and should be embraced, not merely endured, because whoever says yes to one joy says yes to every woe: "all things are entangled, ensnared, enamored."

Put simply Nietzsche: suffering is not all bad. We should embrace it, not just put up with it, because saying yes to one joy means saying yes to every sorrow too: "all things are entangled, ensnared, enamored."

Existence, honestly confronted, is dreadful; the question is whether it can be made bearable at all. The answer: "only as an aesthetic phenomenon," through grandiose art, is the world justifiable.

Put simply Nietzsche: looked at honestly, existence is dreadful, and the question is whether it can be made bearable at all. His answer: only as art, through great creation, can the world be justified.

The Birth of Tragedy, dedicated to Wagner, presents his music-dramas as continuing Greek tragedy, a tradition prized because it made people into artists of living.

Put simply Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, dedicated to Wagner, presents Wagner's operas as heirs to ancient Greek tragedy. He prizes that tradition because it made people into artists of their own lives.

Nietzsche's charge: Christianity is a slave morality. The weak, resenting their masters, brand the strong as bad, declare their own weakness virtue, and accept oppression for a promised reward hereafter.

In the text In the Genealogy of Morals (1887), First Essay §§10–11, the man of ressentiment conceives "the evil enemy", while "bad" is the word of aristocratic origin.

Nietzsche holds that the egalitarianism of Christianity, a religion he calls nihilistic, also infects democracy, which he regards as rule by the mediocre, working against the vitality and heroism life requires.

Nobody yet knows what good and evil are, "unless it be he who creates": the categories we live by must be questioned, not trusted.

Put simply Nietzsche: no one yet knows what good and evil are, "unless it be he who creates." So we must question the moral categories we live by, not trust them.

Zarathustra teaches that humanity must be surpassed: a rope stretched above an abyss between beast and Übermensch, it must serve as a bridge. No Übermensch, Zarathustra included, has yet appeared.

Put simply Nietzsche's Zarathustra: humans must be surpassed. Humanity is a rope over an abyss between beast and "Übermensch" (a future "overhuman"), and must serve as a bridge. No Übermensch has yet appeared, Zarathustra included.

What eternal recurrence means is disputed. On one Kantian reading, you should live every moment as though it would return forever, acting only as you would wish to see repeated.

Put simply Nobody agrees what Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence" means. One reading, echoing Kant: live every moment as if it would come back forever, doing only what you would wish to see repeated.

Where to read it Nietzsche, The Gay Science §341.

In some sense Nietzsche does not care whether a God actually exists; what counts is whether we believe in one and arrange our lives around that belief.

Nietzsche blames Hegelian philosophy's huge, persisting influence for making every crisis of German culture in his century more dangerous; believing oneself a latecomer is "paralyzing and depressing."

Put simply Nietzsche: Hegel's huge, lasting influence made every crisis in German culture in his century more dangerous. Believing you have arrived late, at the tail end of history, is "paralyzing and depressing."

Anti-Hegelian as he is, Nietzsche's thinking has something dialectical about it: one Genealogy of Morals aphorism has great things "bring about their own destruction through an act of self-overcoming."

Put simply Nietzsche attacks Hegel, yet his own thinking has a Hegelian streak of things turning against themselves. In one aphorism, great things "bring about their own destruction through an act of self-overcoming."

Where to read it Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay §27.

Nietzsche is a fierce critic of the Western tradition and accepts none of its core beliefs: truth, morality, God, democracy, or the idea that virtue makes a person happy.