Friedrich Nietzsche
German philosopher and writer
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher and writer who began as a classical philologist. His works include Thus Spoke Zarathustra and On the Genealogy of Morals.
6 summaries 1h 11 min of listening
Prussian Born 1844 in Röcken Died 1900
Influenced by Aristotle, Thomas Carlyle
About Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche was born on 15 October 1844 in Röcken, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He trained as a classical philologist, and in 1869, when he was 24, he was appointed a professor in that field at the University of Basel. Ill health led him to resign in 1879. He then lived as an independent writer, traveling between Switzerland, Italy and southern France, and much of his central work was written during the 1880s. In 1889 he suffered a collapse and lost his mental faculties. His mother, and later his sister, cared for him until he died on 25 August 1900. His writing includes poetry, cultural criticism and philosophical essays, often marked by aphorism and irony. Ideas linked to him include perspectivism, a genealogical critique of Christian morality, the Apollonian and Dionysian duality, the Übermensch and eternal return. Our catalog includes The Birth of Tragedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and On the Genealogy of Morals. After his death, his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche edited his manuscripts to suit her own nationalist views, in a way that distorted his opinions. Later scholars defended him against that reading, and corrected editions followed.