Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm

German philosopher who rejected the accepted absolute moral values and the ‘slave morality’ of Christianity. He argued that ‘God is dead’ and therefore people were free to create their own values. His ideal was the Übermensch, or ‘Superman’, who would impose his will on the weak and worthless. Nietzsche claimed that knowledge is never objective but always serves some interest or unconscious purpose.

His insights into the relation between thought and language were a major influence on philosophy. Although he has been claimed as a precursor by Nazism, many of his views are incompatible with totalitarian ideology. He is a profoundly ambivalent thinker whose philosophy can be appropriated for many purposes.

He published Morgenröte/The Dawn (1880–81), Die fröhliche Wissenschaft/The Gay Science (1881–82), Also sprach Zarathustra/Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85), Jenseits von Gut und Böse/Between Good and Evil (1885–86), Zur Genealogie der Moral/Towards a Genealogy of Morals (1887), and Ecce Homo (1888).