西方现代哲学 · Nietzsche

Nietzsche

Notes compiled from the instructor’s lecture materials; for knowledge sharing only; not for any commercial use

1. Some Ideas to Cover

1.1. Death of God

There is always a common misunderstanding of this phrase, seeing it as blasphemy and disloyalty to religion. But after this statement, Nietzsche continues: “We have killed him.” This is meant to express that with the rise of science, reason, and modern civilization, religion is no longer sufficient to explain the world or satisfy people’s spiritual needs. This is a diagnosis of the cultural condition of his time, not an attack on or denial of religion. Nietzsche’s conclusion is that old values no longer apply; we need to seek new values on our own.¹

1.2. Will to Power

Personally, I find the English term more straightforward. “Will” refers to wanting to do something, and “to do” gives us a sense of drive and desire to act. Will to Power refers to the most fundamental life force. This is a point I particularly like. The passionate vitality of life drives people to expand, create, and do things bigger and better. This is one of the most praiseworthy qualities of life! The statues of ancient Greece display this most primal life force. I myself also really enjoy running; although my talent is modest, when I run long distances on the track, it’s very clear that this state is very healthy and joyful! I recall my high school teacher once saying: “There’s nothing a ten-kilometer run can’t solve.”

Nietzsche’s core idea is that the essence of life is not the will to survive, but self-overcoming, the expansion of power, and self-creation — the fundamental drive by which humanity establishes values after the death of God.

1.3. Problem of Socrates

The divergence between Nietzsche and Socrates lies in:

Attitudes toward Reason

Socrates: Reason is the supreme judge. He proposed that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” believing that through logical debate and conceptual definition, one can find universal truth and thereby guide correct action. Reason is the sole path to happiness and goodness.

Nietzsche: Reason is merely a tool of instinct and the will to power, a surface phenomenon. He criticized Socrates for elevating reason to the point of suppressing instinct, seeing this as a “tyranny of reason.” True wisdom comes from the body, intuition, and creativity, not from cold logic.

The Foundations of Morality Socrates: Morality is a cognitive issue. No one willingly does evil; wrongdoing is merely the result of ignorance. Once a person truly knows the “good,” they will necessarily do it. Therefore, the core of moral education is knowledge.

Nietzsche: Morality is an expression of the will to power. So-called “good” is nothing more than the value by which the strong affirm themselves (master morality), while the Socratic logic of “reason = virtue” actually weakens noble instincts and paves the way for slave morality (compassion, equality, asceticism). He accused Socrates of being “a populist who subverted aristocratic values.”

Attitudes toward Life and Tragedy Socrates: Advocate of clarity, light, and knowable order. In the Republic, he opposed the irrational passions and forces of fate in Homeric epics and Greek tragedy, believing they disturb the soul.

Nietzsche: In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche directly criticized Socrates as the culprit behind the “death of tragedy.” He argued that Socratic optimistic rationalism (the belief that everything can be understood and corrected by logic) killed the “Dionysian spirit” that arose from the depths of life in Greek tragedy — the instinctive power that unites chaos, suffering, ecstasy, and creation. The true will to life precisely requires embracing suffering and uncertainty.

Attitudes toward Death Socrates: Faced death calmly. In the Phaedo, he viewed death as the liberation of the soul from the prison of the body, entering the realm of pure reason. Philosophy is “practice for death.”

Nietzsche: Vigorously affirmed life, including its pain and death. He proposed “dying at the right time” and opposed all fantasies of an afterlife or otherworld. He said: “Socrates wanted to die — it was not Athens, but he himself who forced the hemlock upon himself.” He believed Socrates was fundamentally weary of life and used rational argumentation to find an excuse for death.

1.4. Apollonian vs Dionysian

The Apollonian and Dionysian are two opposing yet complementary artistic-spiritual symbols proposed by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy. The Apollonian is the god of the sun, representing order, reason, clarity, and form; the Dionysian is the god of wine, representing chaos, passion, irrationality, and the primal force of life. Nietzsche believed that the greatness of Greek tragedy lies in its successful fusion of these two spirits: through Apollonian structure and form, it expresses Dionysian vitality and suffering, thereby creating a profound artistic experience. This is also reflected in the Problem of Socrates.

1.5. Übermensch (Overman / Superman)

The Übermensch is one who can create values from within themselves, affirm life in its entirety (including pain and destruction), and is not bound by old morality. Like Zarathustra, they are a “bridge to the future” spanning the abyss of nihilism. The Last Man settles for comfort, equality, and a risk-free life, seeking only mild, small happiness; the Übermensch pursues danger, greatness, and self-overcoming. The Übermensch is an ideal that humanity should strive toward, not a racial or political label.

1.6. Eternal Recurrence

This is because Nietzsche believed that the components of the world are finite, and therefore, after a sufficiently long time, the same events will recur in cycles. Your present and past life will repeat infinitely many times — every bit of pain and joy will be experienced again. Would you curse or cheer?

Ethical significance: the final blow against all “otherworldly” hopes. If life is eternally repeating and has no ultimate purpose, then the only meaningful attitude is to say “yes” to every moment, to love one’s fate (amor fati). This is the standard for testing whether a person truly affirms life.

2. Assigned Reading Analysis

2.1. Reading I: The Gay Science (1882/87) §125, §341–344

2.1.1. §125: The Madman and the Death of God

This is one of Nietzsche’s most famous passages. A madman runs into the marketplace in broad daylight carrying a lantern, shouting “I seek God!” — only to be mocked by the atheists present. The madman then declares: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

Core analysis:

• First, this statement is not blasphemy against religion, but a diagnosis of the condition of modern civilization. The rise of science, reason, and modernity has made the Christian God “no longer believable” — religion can no longer provide a convincing framework of meaning for the world.
• “We have killed him” means: this is not an external event descending upon us, but an act of humanity itself — we have, through enlightenment, science, and modern civilization, destroyed the foundations of religious faith with our own hands.
• The madman forces his audience to face the consequences with a series of pressing questions: “Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing?”
• Nietzsche’s conclusion: Old values are no longer applicable; we need to seek new values on our own. The death of God is both an unprecedented crisis and an unprecedented freedom.

2.1.2. §341: The Greatest Weight — The Thought Experiment of Eternal Recurrence

“ What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence…” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” ”

This thought experiment is Nietzsche’s ultimate test of “life affirmation.” Suppose your life will repeat forever in exactly the same way — every pain, every regret, every small shame will be relived infinitely — how do you respond? If you curse the one who proposed this, if you curse fate — then deep down you do not truly affirm life. But if you can say “yes” to this fate, this is amor fati (love of fate): an unreserved affirmation of every moment of existence.

2.1.3. §343: How to Understand Our Cheerfulness

Here, Nietzsche further elaborates on the cultural consequences of the “death of God.” He writes that this event “has already begun to cast its first shadow over Europe.” For the few sensitive ones, “some kind of sun seems to have set; some old deep trust has turned into doubt.” But on the whole, this event “is still far too great, distant, and out of the way” for most people’s comprehension — people do not yet know “how much must collapse” as a result, including “our entire European morality.”

2.1.4. §344: In What Way We, Too, Are Still Pious

This is a crucial turning point in Nietzsche’s thought system. He points out: Even science rests on a faith. Science presupposes the rejection of all convictions — convictions have no right of citizenship in science, and must be downgraded to “hypotheses,” “tentative standpoints,” or “regulative fictions” to be accepted. However, Nietzsche asks: in order for the scientific spirit to begin, must there not be an “antecedent conviction” — one so authoritative and unconditional that it sacrifices all other convictions to itself? This antecedent conviction is: “Nothing is more necessary than truth.” The foundation of science is a moral commitment — an unconditional faith in the value of truth. And this faith itself has never been justified by science itself.

“ Thus I deny morality as I deny alchemy, that is, I deny their premises: but I do not deny that there have been alchemists who believed in these premises and acted in accordance with them. ”

2.2. Reading II: Twilight of the Idols (1888), “The Problem of Socrates” (pp. 162–6)

This section comprises §1 through §12. Here Nietzsche pushes his hostility toward Socrates — dating back to The Birth of Tragedy — to its extreme:

• §1–2: “Socrates is a symptom of decline” — “I recognized Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decay, as agents of Greek disintegration, as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek.”
• §3–4: Socrates’ ugliness is interpreted by Nietzsche as a physiological signal — he belongs to the “criminal type,” a bodily expression of the “décadent.”
• §5: Socrates elevated reason to supreme judge, creating the equation “reason = virtue = happiness.” Nietzsche sees this as anti-life — reason is not the source of life but its enemy.
• §8–10: Socrates “wanted to die” — he was not forced to drink poison by the Athenian trial, but “he himself forced the hemlock upon himself.” He was weary of life and used rational argumentation to find justification for his own death.
• Core thesis: “Judgments, value judgments on life, for or against, can ultimately never be true.” The living are an interested party and cannot be judges; the dead cannot judge either. Any judgment asserting that life has or does not have value is merely a physiological symptom, not truth.

Nietzsche’s critique of Socrates is essentially a critique of rationalism: when reason is elevated to the point of suppressing instinct and life, it ceases to be an instrument of liberation and becomes a weapon of enslavement.

3. Supplementary Readings

3.1. Ecce Homo: How to Become What You Are

My campaign against morality begins with this book. Not that it has the slightest scent of gunpowder:-if you have some subtlety in your nostrils, you will smell very different and much pleasanter odours in it. Neither big guns nor small ones: if this book has a negative effect, its means are anything but that; the effect follows from these means like an inference, not like cannon fire. If you take leave of this book with a sort of timid caution towards everything that has been honoured and even adorned under the aegis of morality, this is not at odds with the fact that there is not a single negative word in the entire book, not a single attack or piece of malice, - that instead it lies in the sun, round and happy like a sea creature sunning itself between rocks. Ultimately, this is what I was, this sea creature: almost every sentence in the book was thought, hatched, in that jumble of rocks near Genoa where I was alone and still had secrets with the sea. Even now, whenever I happen to come into contact with this book, almost every sentence turns into a hook, pulling something incomparable from out of the depths: its whole skin trembles with gentle shudders of memory.

Nietzsche declares from the outset that he is launching a “campaign against morality.” But note: he is not opposing all morality, but rather the traditional morality rooted in Christianity and Platonism — the morality that treats “selflessness,” “compassion,” and “self-denial” as the highest values.

Daybreak is the first shot in this campaign. However, Nietzsche immediately emphasizes: there is no smell of gunpowder in this book. That is, his method of critique is not fierce attack or incitement to hatred, but a subtler, cooler, almost inference-like approach to dismantling old moral beliefs.

3.2. Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality §103

There are two kinds of deniers of morality. - ‘To deny morality’ - this can mean, first: to deny that the moral motives which men claim have inspired their actions really have done so - it is thus the assertion that morality consists of words and is among the coarser or more subtle deceptions (especially self-deceptions) which men practise, and is perhaps so especially in precisely the case of those most famed for virtue. Then it can mean: to deny that moral judgments are based on truths. Here it is admitted that they really are motives of action, but that in this way it is errors which, as the basis of all moral judgment, impel men to their moral actions. This is my point of view: though I should be the last to deny that in very many cases there is some ground for suspicion that the other point of view - that is to say, the point of view of La Rochefoucauld and others who think like him - may also be justified and in any event of great general application. - Thus I deny morality as I deny alchemy, that is, I deny their premises: but I do not deny that there have been alchemists who believed in these premises and acted in accordance with them. - I also deny immorality: not that countless people feel themselves to be immoral, but there is any true reason so to feel. It goes without saying that I do not deny - unless I am a fool - that many actions called immoral ought to be avoided and resisted, or that many called moral ought to be done and encouraged - but I think the one should be encouraged and the other avoided for other reasons than hitherto. We have to learn to think differently - in order at last, perhaps very late on, to attain even more: to feel differently.

Nietzsche points out that there are two kinds of denial of morality:

The first kind (the position of La Rochefoucauld and others): holds that the moral motives people claim are not their real driving forces — morality is merely a set of words and deceptions (including self-deceptions), especially in the case of those most famed for virtue.

The second kind (Nietzsche’s own position): admits that moral motives can indeed drive action, but these motives are based on errors rather than truths. That is, the foundations of moral judgment are fallacies, not objective realities. Nietzsche denies morality in the same way he denies alchemy — denying its premises, but not denying that there were alchemists who believed in those premises and acted according to them.

The ultimate goal is: first learn to think differently, then learn to feel differently.

3.3. The Gay Science (1882/7) §343

How to understand our cheerfulness. - The greatest recent event - that ‘God is dead’; that the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable - is already starting to cast its first shadow over Europe. To those few at least whose eyes - or the suspicion in whose eyes is strong and subtle enough for this spectacle, some kind of sun seems to have set; some old deep trust turned into doubt: to them, our world must appear more autumnal, more mistrustful, stranger, ‘older’. But in the main one might say: for many people’s power of comprehension, the event is itself far too great, distant, and out of the way even for its tidings to be thought of as having arrived yet. Even less may one suppose many to know at all what this event really means - and, now that this faith has been undermined, how much must collapse because it was built on this faith, leaned on it, had grown into it - for example, our entire European morality.

3.4. The Gay Science (1882/7) §344

In what way we, too, are still pious. – In science, convictions have no right to citizenship, as one says with good reason: only when they decide to step down to the modesty of a hypothesis, a tentative experimental standpoint, a regulative fiction, may they be granted admission and even a certain value in the realm of knowledge – though always with the restriction that they remain under police supervision, under the police of mistrust. But doesn’t this mean, on closer consideration, that a conviction is granted admission to science only when it ceases to be a conviction? Wouldn’t the cultivation of the scientific spirit begin when one permitted oneself no more convictions? That is probably the case; only we need still ask: in order that this cultivation begin, must there not be some prior conviction – and indeed one so authoritative and unconditional that it sacrifices all other convictions to itself? We see that science, too, rests on a faith; there is simply no ‘presuppositionless’ science. The question whether truth is necessary must get an answer in advance, the answer ‘yes’, and moreover this answer must be so firm that it takes the form of the statement, the belief, the conviction: “Nothing is more necessary than truth; and in relation to it, everything else has only secondary value.”

Summary: The rejection of convictions itself depends on a stronger conviction; science, too, rests on a faith. Scientists, in their pursuit of truth, are in fact just like devout believers, holding an unshakable conviction.

3.5. Twilight of the Idols (1888), ‘The problem of Socrates’, §2

This piece of irreverence, that the great sages are types of decline, first dawned on me in just the sort of case where scholarly and unscholarly prejudice would be working most strongly to prevent it: I recognized Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decay, as agents of Greek disintegration, as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek (Birth of Tragedy, 1872). The consensus sapientium – I see this with increasing lucidity – proves least of all that the wisest men were right about what they agreed on: instead, it proves that they were in physiological agreement about something, and consequently adopted – had to adopt – the same negative attitude towards life. Judgments, value judgments on life, for or against, can ultimately never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they can be taken seriously only as symptoms, – in themselves, judgments like these are stupidities. You really have to stretch out your fingers and make a concerted attempt to grasp this amazing piece of subtlety, that the value of life cannot be estimated. Not by the living, who are an interested party, a bone of contention, even, and not judges; not by the dead for other reasons. – It is an objection to a philosopher if he sees a problem with the value of life, it is a question mark on his wisdom, an un-wisdom. – What? So not only were the great sages all decadents but – they weren’t even sages? – But let me return to the problem of Socrates.

All judgments about the value of life are foolish, because the value of life cannot be objectively assessed — the living are interested parties who cannot serve as judges; the dead cannot judge at all. Any judgment asserting that life “has” or “does not have” value is merely a physiological symptom, not truth. To be puzzled about the value of life is a philosopher’s failure.

4. Revaluation of Values

Nietzsche characterizes his philosophical task as “Umwertung aller Werte” (the revaluation of all values). This is not merely a negation of existing morality — it is a thoroughgoing re-examination of the very sources and foundations of value.

• Old values (centered on Christian-Platonism): locate the “good” in a transcendent realm (God, the world of Forms), denigrating life, the body, instinct, and this-worldly existence
• New values: take life itself as the ultimate standard of value — whatever promotes the flourishing, creation, and self-overcoming of life is “good”; whatever suppresses life is “bad”

Revaluation means: we no longer accept any “given” authority of value — whether God, tradition, or reason — but become creators of value ourselves. This follows directly from the “death of God”: when external authority collapses, the task of creating values falls back upon humanity itself.

5. My Understanding

In short, Nietzsche is deeply passionate. His thought can be summarized as: “Become who you are” — not discovering a predetermined self, but continuously creating a higher self through struggle, affirmation, and creation.

To quote a passage: Nietzsche’s “original self” is social — it is the self we are forced to be shaped into and to become within our social roles, determined by our social nature, a “product” of the combined forces of environment, education, institutions, and culture. But “becoming who you are” means continuously challenging the “forces” of existing elements, constantly breaking through and exploring the self that has already been formed, persistently pursuing the inner “true self,” and continuously “awakening,” “developing,” “revealing,” and even, following one’s heart, “recreating” that objectively existing kernel self that is “at ease in its own nature”!

This, I believe, is the essence of Nietzsche!

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