Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Listen to Peter Watson say why you should vote for Friedrich Nietzsche'The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.'
Friedrich Nietzsche's complete rejection of Christianity, with the famous quote "God is dead", led him to be known as a remarkable philosopher in his own right, but also as a progenitor of existentialism.
A brilliant young man, he was appointed professor at the University of Basel aged 24 having not even finished his degree. His evanescent philosophical life ended 20 years later when he went insane and died shortly afterwards.
Nietzsche's argued that the Christian system of faith and worship was not only incorrect, but harmful to society because it allowed the weak to rule the strong - it suppressed the will to power which was the driving force of human character.
Nietzsche wanted people to throw of the shackles of our misguided Christian morality and become supermen - free and titanic.
However, without God he felt that the future of man might spiral into a society of nihilism, devoid of any meaning; his aim was for man to realise the lack of divine purpose and create his own values.
The core of Nietzsche's work, including
Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-92),
Beyond Good and Evil (1886),
The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was to find a meaning and morality in the absence of God.
Works by Friedrich Nietzsche on
Project Gutenberg including
Also Sprach Zarathustra,
Beyond Good and Evil and other works in German.
Read about Friedrich Nietzsche on WikipediaRead about Friedrich Nietzsche on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Please note: the BBC accepts no responsibility for the content of external websites.
Listen to Peter Watson say why you should vote for Friedrich Nietzsche
