Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who challenged the foundations of traditional Western thought and morality. He was born in 1844 in a small town near Leipzig, where his father was a Lutheran pastor. He studied classical philology at the universities of Bonn and Leipzig, and became a professor of Greek at the University of Basel in Switzerland at the age of 24. He resigned from his position in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life. He spent the next decade traveling and writing prolifically on various topics, such as art, history, religion, culture, and philosophy. His main works include The Birth of Tragedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Antichrist, and Ecce Homo. He developed original and provocative ideas, such as the death of God, the Übermensch, the eternal return, the will to power, the master-slave morality, and the transvaluation of values. He also criticized Christianity, democracy, nationalism, and modernity as manifestations of decadence and nihilism. He suffered a mental breakdown in 1889 and spent his last years in the care of his mother and sister. He died in 1900 in Weimar from pneumonia and multiple strokes. His sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche edited his unpublished writings and promoted his philosophy to the public. However, she also distorted his views and associated them with Nazism and fascism. Nietzsche's philosophy has been widely influential and controversial in various fields of art, literature, psychology, politics, and culture. He is regarded as one of the most original and profound thinkers of modern times.