Talk:Friedrich Nietzsche

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To-do: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Separate biographical content from Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche content.
    • Perhaps separate and add material on Nietzsche's philological work as well: e.g., Philology of Friedrich Nietzsche.
  • Assemble secondary sources: no original research, among other policies and guidelines:
    • Remove POV; i.e., what Nietzsche's position is, on many topics, is highly debatable, and thus his views must not be slanted or implied without secondary sources (this means quotations of his works will amount to original research, especially when consensus is indicative of this);
    • Improve text on Nietzsche's relation to Socrates.
    • Cite sources;
    • Properly discuss 'Mental Breakdown' and compare different sourced theories, i.e. he was admitted to hospital with a syphilis infection which gradually causes nuero-degeneration over a period of up to five decades resulting in madness, he had an undiagnosed brain tumor, he was already insane and there is clear evidence for this, etc, etc.
    • add Hegel to the influenced by section
    • fix the following quote: "Due in part to Ritschl's support,He was a faget homosexiual Nazi." in the section "Professor at Basel (1869–1879)"
      • VERY MINOR-Please fix the following word choice-""eventually suffered dismissal"".
      • That looks like a beautifully precise translation. The meaning could not be more clear. However, that is probably not ideal English usage. Someone please fix this.

Archives: Archive 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7• 8

Contents

[edit] Friedrich Nietzsche removed from Wikipedia:Good articles

Friedrich Nietzsche (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) was formerly listed as a good article, but was removed from the listing because this article fails the first four points of a good article (it is not NPOV, completely factually accurate or well-written. It is especially not stable (as it is a highly controversial topic.)

[edit] Since when was Nietzsche a metaphysician?

You guys should read his books before writing about him on wikipedia. He spends what time he isn't attacking morality and Christianity attacking metaphysics, giving psychologies of the metaphysical decadents, and pointing out all their major flaws. As for his eternal recurrence it is simply a test of one's affirmation of life. Whereas metaphysicians are seem as trying to negate or deny life by creating a beyond, Nietzsche is fully absorbed in his "Gay Science" in reality. The Will to Power is not metaphysical either, it is simply an observation that all life on planet earth is struggle for power -- as one grows another necessarily falls; all life is in competition and thus it is a struggle for power. I would go on but I shouldn't need to. Just open any of his books to see his position on metaphysics. His later books have more to say on the topic than his early ones. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.151.119.241 (talk) 07:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Eternal recurrence as a "test" is a fairly common interpretation... but Nietzsche also wrote (and decided not to publish) a brief (psuedo)scientific argument for eternal recurrence as a factual phenomenon. Unfortunately, these issues are never as cut and dry as we might like (which Nietzsche would no doubt agree with); in the 19th and 20th centuries there have been all sorts of philosophers who've claimed to be anti-metaphysical, but there's always an argument about whether their denial of metaphysics itself constitutes a sort of metaphysical stand... and it's not so easy to just dismiss these arguments.
In any case, I'd certainly agree it's weird to call Nietzsche a metaphysician, if it says that anywhere in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.68.115.175 (talk) 14:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "A reversion of Platonism"

I removed a bit from the article's introduction, where it was claimed that one of N's notable ideas was a reversion of Platonism. Whilst it is true that N. tries to refute the notion of granted knowledge, and therefore denies Platonic idealism and metaphysics, he does not specifically propose the reversion of Platonism at any point, and so the claim makes no sense on its own. It was taken out of the article because I fear it might have been a product of confusion of some reader of Deleuze's work.

D., in his work, proposes a literal reversion of Platonism, wherein the difference would be taken as the fundamental ontological unit, and the identity would be a product thereof. D. grounds his argumentation on a biased reading of N., one based on cherry picked excerpts from The Will to Power --- not only were those excerpts fabricated and taken out of N's intended context for them, they are also contradictory to much of N's work. For more information, see D'Iorio, Paolo: "Nietzsche et l’éternel retour. Genèse et interprétation", Nietzsche. Cahiers de l’Herne, Paris, l’Herne, 2000. 200.232.138.102 (talk) 22:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted the change. The phrasing certainly didn't conjure up images of Deleuze for me. Nietzsche did express opposition to Platonism, which is what I took the sentence to be expressing. Removing his battle with Plato from the introduction seems a bit extreme. RJC Talk Contribs 23:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm broadly sympathetic with RJC's reasoning here: Nietzsche did position himself squarely against Plato's "original error" and Plato's influence on Christianity "Platonism for the masses". This is not a technical philosophical article (that's here), but a biography rated as of High importance for Wikipedia, and thus "written in mostly generic terms, leaving technical terms and descriptions for more specialized pages." Regards, Skomorokh 23:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I can see your reasoning, and I won't remove it again. I'm still not happy about that passage, though. RJC, Skomorokh, I understand the we have to be generic in a biographical article, but there still is a far cry between being generic and distorting something. That passage, in my opinion, does the later. Like RJC said, Nietzsche expressed opposition to Platonism, and that's a negative action --- at best, if you accept his argumentation, he refuted the Platonic ideals. Reversing is something entirely different: it is proposing another theory, one which could be described as "Platonism backwards", Platonism "reversed". He didn't do that, at any point, all his work is indifferent or at best opposite to Plato, not influenced by it, let alone determined by it.
For the sake of clarity, having in mind the people who have never read N. and are browsing their first biography, I think that bit is better off removed --- but if you make a point at stating right up in the very first paragraphs that N. opposed to Plato, at least don't do it in a way that is likely to generate misconceptions and whatnot. "N. proposed a reversion of Platonism" is the kind of thing that would make me ask a student: really? in what sense? And question their research. I say that bit is overall irrelevant at best, but if you must keep it, consider adding a "citation needed" mark to it. --200.232.138.102 (talk) 01:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
While I agree that we should not remove N's thoughts on Platonism from the lead, "reversal" does seem to be the wrong word. Indeed, it is remniscent of the way in which N is sometimes taken as an immoralist in the classical sense of inverting morality (making the good bad and the bad good). Why not say his "rejection of Platonism"? Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 03:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like a good fix. RJC Talk Contribs 10:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I've made the change, though obviously anyone who objects is free to continue the discussion. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 15:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Fine by me. Thanks for your thoughtful ideas on the matter, anonymous. Skomorokh 23:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with page layout?

Has anyone else noticed a huge blank space gap after the heading "Youth" and the text beginning "born on..."? If so, maybe we should make a change with the image file that is suppose to be positioned in this gap but appears on my browser to be off in the right hand margin. I have not had a problem like this before so it is hard to imagine I am the only one experiencing this. PhilipDSullivan 00:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so I figured out that the problem occured when I had my preference set to view wikipedia with the cologne blue skin. Now that they are at the classic skin, there is no gap. This may be more of an issue for whoever designed that preference option than it is for this article. I am still curious as to why there is only a problem in this one place. PhilipDSullivan 02:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nietzsche's influence and reception

I don't think the section that explains the Nazis use of Nietzsche as selective does sufficient justice to the sheer irony of this association. Using verbs such as manipulate/distort would make more sense in this context. This is particularly important due to the very common misconception that Nietzsche's philosophy is implicitly favorable to Nazism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.201.157.38 (talk) 21:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I also have problems with this article; in particular, the main article of Nietzsche's influence and reception and not neccesarily the blurb in this Parent article - however, there is not much discussion on the Nietzsche's Influence and Reception page. There are weak citations made, and the goal of describing Nietzche's influence does not seem to be gone about methodically - select points in time are mentioned at great length while others are forgotten. In general, the main article lacks a strong structure. PhilipDSullivan 22:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is Nietsche?

All I have seen in this article is Nietsche's bio and influence but I am yet to find the right answers to my questions. I am aware of the ubermensch, "god is dead," etc. But there are some things I'm still unclear about.


1. What was Nietsche's general beliefs.

2. How did Nietsche influence nazism.

3. Why is Nietsche considered a nihilist when it seems obvious that he is opposed to nihilism.

These might seem like dumb questions and I'll understand if I get some insulting responses, but I'll ask these questions anyway just for the hell of it. (UTC) Anonymity 12:55, MAR., 21, '07


For question 1 i recommend reading nietzsch's "ECCE HOMME", its a short book, and it has most of his key beliefs in, it was his last book before being commited to an asylum, (or so i think). question 2, there is an article abve covering that, and, i have no idea why nietzsche would be considered a nihilist when every knows that he had strong views about organised religion and other things, (just an example) to be hounest, im only 12, i dont really know that much im just reading some of his books and finding them interesting so please dont be too pissed of if what i have given you is wrong,

Hi Anonymity. Nietzsche hated both German nationalism and anti-Semitism. But Hitler loved Nietzsche's aphorisms... —Cesar Tort 06:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
In answer to "1. What was Nietsche's general beliefs?", I would say the following. Nietzsche is best understood as a reaction to Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer said that the world is essentially painful endless strife and desire. He said that this pointless willing should be escaped through the distraction of art or a rejection of the world. Nietzsche agreed that the world is composed of painful willing that can never be satisfied. But, Nietzsche said that we should love and accept the world as it is, not try to escape from it.Lestrade 17:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)Lestrade
The nihlilsm stuff is generally quite complex... Nietzsche himself perhaps sees himself as overcoming nihlism, but he never completed his major work Will To Power in which he was going to attempt a complete transformation of all values. However the question of nihilism is heavily influenced by Heidegger's reading of N., so there is partially a retroactive element as well.

[edit] Regarding the brothel story (Deussen)

This [1] is not wrong, but it is slightly misleading, partly due to third-hand-quotation. I will quote the entire original section concerning the event. Deussen, Erinnerungen an Friedrich Nietzsche, Leipzig 1901, p. 24:

Nietzsche war eines Tages, im Februar 1865, allein nach Köln gefahren, hatte sich dort von einem Dienstmann zu den Sehenswürdigkeiten geleiten lassen und forderte diesen zuletzt auf, ihn in ein Restaurant zu führen. Der aber bringt ihn in ein übel berüchtigtes Haus. "Ich sah mich," so erzählte mir Nietzsche am andern Tage, "plötzlich umgeben von einem halben Dutzend Erscheinungen in Flitter und Gaze, welche mich erwartungsvoll ansahen. Sprachlos stand ich eine Weile. Dann ging ich instinktmäßig auf ein Klavier als auf das einzige seelenhafte Wesen in der Gesellschaft los und schlug einige Akkorde an. Sie lösten meine Erstarrung, und ich gewann das Freie." Nach diesem und allem, was ich von Nietzsche weiß, möchte ich glauben, daß auf ihn die Worte Anwendung finden, welche Steinhart in einer lateinischen Biographie des Platon uns diktierte: mulierem nunquam attigit.

I have not tried a translation yet, perhaps someone else could? In any case, there is of course no cab driver driving Nietzsche around, but a Dienstmann (commissionaire) guiding him. Also, what would really need a source is the claim that "early commentators [...] based their diagnosis partly on this testimony", because the "testimony" is more of an anecdote with a conclusion quite contrary to the syphilis diagnosis. (AFAIK, the first public discussion of syphilis as a cause was Paul Julius Möbius' Über das Pathologische bei Nietzsche, 1902, but I do not know if he referred to Deussen. - The most prominent known reception of Deussen's story ist Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus.) Also, the statement that

  • two years later, he would be treated for syphilis by two doctors while a student

has its source, as can be seen, not at Deussen. In fact it was claimed for the first time by Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum in 1947 (!) (Nietzsche. Krankheit und Wirkung). The most detailed analysis of Nietzsche's illness which I know, Pia Daniela Volz' Nietzsche im Labyrinth seiner Krankheit, discusses all this at length - but I think the article got it right with saying

  • While most commentators regard Nietzsche's breakdown as unrelated to his philosophy

and more or less leave it this way - although, for example, I am not sure if brain cancer can be inherited, as stated there. Frankly, I would like to have the paragraph as it was before the addition, but I'd also like to hear other general opinions about how Nietzsche's illness(es) and breakdown should be dealed with in a WP article.--Chef aka Pangloss 01:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Translation: One day in February, 1865, Nietzsche was traveling alone to Cologne. He had allowed himself to be led by a porter to sights that were worth seeing and eventually asked him the way to a restaurant. But, instead, he was brought to a house of ill repute. "I saw myself," Nietzsche told me later, "suddenly surrounded by a half dozen apparitions in spangle and gauze, who looked at me expectantly. I stood speechless for a while. Then I instinctively went to a piano, which was the only being with a soul in the gathering, and struck a chord. It loosened my stiffness, and I won my freedom." From this and other things that I know about Nietzsche, I believe that the words that Steinhart said in a Latin biography of Plato can be applied to him: He never touched a woman.Lestrade 19:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

Thats a good translation.--Tresckow 10:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nietzsche's philosophy

The section on N's philosophy in this wiki article is quite weak. It is disorderly and not viewpoint neutral. It ranges from breezy to prejudiced.

I offer an example of the non-neutrality and prejudice. The third sentence of the section reads:

Nietzsche famously claimed that "God is dead", and this death either results in radical perspectivism or compels one to confront the fact that truth had always been perspectival.

This passage is already convinced that there is a perspectival result, one way or another. What pomo filth! What mind numbing authoritarianism in interpretation, compounded by the mind numbing stupidity of the claim: how on earth is perspective related to the death of God? That just seems preposterous in addition to being unargued.

After a messy and hasty rendition of typical simple ideas about good and evil and master and slave, wiki's tawdry little philosophy section moves on to proclaim that:

The rise of morality and of moral disputes thus becomes a matter of psychology; [WASN'T it ALWAYS?] Nietzsche's perspectivism likewise reduces epistemology to psychology [Oh, does it??]. [Transition?]One of the most recurrent themes in Nietzsche's work, therefore, emerges as the "Will to Power". [What a stupid sentence] At a minimum, Nietzsche claims for the will to power that it describes human behavior more compellingly than Platonic eros, Schopenhauer's "will to live," or Paul Rée's utilitarian account of morality, among others; to go beyond this would involve interpretation. [maybe, but this last sentence redeams nothing here]

After that horrible gongor, this article moves on to the breezy claim that : Much of Nietzsche's philosophy has a critical flavour to it, and much criticism of his work has arisen from the fact that "he does not have a system". These two ideas just should not be contrasted like this. They are too different.

Next: However, Nietzsche himself expressed a general disdain for philosophy as the construction of systems — indeed, he says (for example) in the preface of Beyond Good and Evil that many systems built by dogmatist philosophers have relied more on popular prejudices (such as the idea of a soul) than anything else. Look at that TERRIBLE SENTENCE! Destroy it, my dear wiki people, destroy it!

Next: Concepts still associated with a more constructive project include the Übermensch (variously translated as superman, superhuman, or in the way most philosophers refer to it today, overman) and the eternal return (or eternal recurrence). Another TERRIBLE ONE!

Finally: Nietzsche posits the overman as a goal that humanity can achieve for itself, or that an individual can set for himself. This is a COMMON PREJUDICE'Bold text'!!! N said specifically that the ubermensch is not an ideal, not a goal for humanity!!!

And then: Nietzsche contrasts the Übermensch with the Last Man, who appears as an exaggerated version of the degraded "goal" that liberal democratic or bourgeois society sets for itself. Both the Übermensch and the eternal return feature heavily in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. (Scholars also disagree about the interpretation of the eternal return.)

Yeuch!!

Somebody start a new, organized discussion of this man's philosophy. Please! To properly edit this one is simply to strike almost every word of it, and start over from scratch.


Well, it has been a few months now and still, the philosophy section of this article is TERRIBLE!

Here it is in all its raging horror, with my comments inserted.

Of major philosophers, Nietzsche has generated possibly the least consensus. One can readily identify his key concepts [I deny it, since there are huge disputes about it], but the meaning of each, let alone the relative significance of each, remains hotly contested. Nietzsche famously put forward the idea that "God is dead", and this death either results in radical perspectivism or compels one to confront the fact that humans have always regarded truth perspectivally. [STUPID POSTMODERN LIE!!!]Nietzsche also distinguished between master and slave moralities, the former arising from a celebration of life, the latter the result of ressentiment at those capable of the former. This distinction becomes in summary the difference between "good and bad" on the one hand, and "good and evil" on the other; importantly, the "good" man of the master morality equates to the "evil" man of the slave morality.[Even if this sentence is true, it is useless for this article because it's parts are underdefined and so it explains nothing to novices]

The rise of morality and of moral disputes thus becomes a matter of psychology [the rise of? becomes a matter of psychology? do you mean explaining the rise of?]; Nietzsche's perspectivism likewise reduces epistemology to psychology [Unargued, virtually meaningless. If anything, Nietzsche treated things psychologically, but he attempted to cash out the epistemic terms in MORAL terms--read his autobio, please!]. One of the most recurrent themes in Nietzsche's work, therefore, emerges as the "Will to Power". [See this sentence? See how DUMB it is? Feel how smug and self-confident and DUMB it is? Kill it WIKI PEOPLE! KILL IT!] At a minimum, Nietzsche claims for the will to power that it describes human behavior more compellingly than Platonic eros, Schopenhauer's "will to live," or Paul Rée's utilitarian account of morality, among others; to go beyond this would involve interpretation. [To go beyond what? Your "this" is vague. And you are already interpreting, you ass! You POSTMODERNIST, Heideggerian ASS!!]

Much of Nietzsche's philosophy has a critical flavour to it, and much criticism of his work has arisen from the fact that "he does not have a system". [oh, lets be breezy now that we have been high handed and unclear for a whole paragraph already...]However, Nietzsche himself expressed a general disdain for philosophy as the construction of systems — indeed, he says (for example) in the preface of Beyond Good and Evil that many systems built by dogmatist philosophers have relied more on popular prejudices (such as the idea of a soul) than anything else [These two ideas are not as closely related as the author hopes...but in addition, that is NOT what the preface to BGE says!!]. Concepts still associated with a more constructive project include the Übermensch (variously translated as superman, superhuman, or in the way most philosophers refer to it today, overman) and the eternal return (or eternal recurrence). Nietzsche posits the overman as a goal that humanity can achieve for itself, or that an individual can set for himself. [Once again for all the little minds working here, the notion that N's philosophy can be summed up under the four concepts of eternal return, ubermensch, will to power and Amor Fati is a lie invented by the ASS known as Martin Heidegger, the Nazi Ass, I should say. thus it is, to quote N, a lie from the devil's behind! If that is N's philosophy, then N is not worth reading, unphilosophical and stupid. He is none of these things, therefore this Heideggerian prejudice is refuted by modus tollens, you DOLTS! You unphilosophical, antiphhilosophical Heideggerian DOLTS!]

Nietzsche contrasts the Übermensch with the Last Man, who appears as an exaggerated version of the degraded "goal" that liberal democratic or bourgeois society sets for itself. [No, it is the man of Christian Morality, DOLT!] Both the Übermensch and the eternal return feature heavily in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. (Scholars also disagree about the interpretation of the eternal return.)[This sentence is off the topic! Who cares which book? And why is this the last piece of info in the section on this man's philosophy?]

For those of you who don't know what philosophy is, let me just tell you that it is the study of the most general propositions available to human brains in the areas of metaphysics, epistemology and ethics/value theory.

If this section is not rewritten entirely by September, I shall rewrite it myself in October. Then you will have a lot to cry about, you postmodern idiots. A lot!

Not2plato 00:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The section is a mere summary of the page Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, an undoubtedly more suitable candidate for your opinions. Skomorokh incite 01:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, Skomoroch, that the other article sucks as badly as this little section. But you will, I trust, agree with me that this little section that sucks is terribly important because lots and lots of novices, including college students, and sophomoric ones at that, will look at this little section as a likely content to store away in their brains as their knowledge of Nietzsche. It must be improved or removed, but I will not be able to work on it for a while.

Not2plato 17:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

--- Sir, "For those of you who don't know what philosophy is, let me just tell you that it is the study of the most general propositions available to human brains in the areas of metaphysics, epistemology and ethics/value theory."

This may be your idea of philosophy but it wasn't Nietzsche's. Nietzsche was looking for a new type of philosophy, one advanced by his free spirits. Metaphysics and epistemology are errors to Nietzsche, misuses of language. Language comes inductively from planet earth and Nietzsche continuously points out that it is erroneous to apply it to some "beyond". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.151.119.241 (talk) 07:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Rewrite

As of October 22, the "Philosophy" section was still really awful. Since it sounds like it'd been that way for a while, I went ahead and rewrote it, while expanding it significantly. As it stands now, the "ubermensch" section is basically non-existent, and I'd suggest Nietzsche's views on tragedy (including discussion of Apollonian/Dionysian impulses) deserves its own subheading, since this is another of his most frequently cited themes.

[edit] Another problem

There is also a problem in this article about the master-morality vs slave-morality. According to my reading of Nietzsche, the main problem he has with the slave morality is that its not self-contained, not coming from the slave's will. Their morality requires their relationship with their master as it is based upon it. On the other hand the master's morality stems from their on will. Nietzsche doesnt glorify the actual moral statements of the masters but the methodology used to get to them, ie: their own will. Besides how could someone who writes a book called "Beyond good and evil" appreciate in a good light a morality where "value arises as a contrast between good and bad"(from the article). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.18.124.229 (talk) 16:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

You may be right about your reading of Nietzsche, but Wikipedia is not a place for original research. RJC Talk 05:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

THANK YOU for the rewrite, dear WIKI PEOPLE!!! Now if a student relies on this article for knowledge of N's philosophy, the result will not be simplistic chaos and prejudice.

I agree that apollo/dionysus and drama are commonly cited. A subsection on them would be useful.

AS for master and slave morality: the notion that N has a negative view of slave morality is not entirely fair. He understands it to be an extremely important part of history. Without slave morality, there would be no science and no higher culture. If there was nothing but master morality, history would be an eternal stupidity. His point in writing the book is in part to teach us how foreign and strange master morality is to us -- even though it is still a part of all of us. We identify too much with the good slave in us, and find the good master in us strange and unfamiliar. To do so, he has to demonstrate the good of the master perspective.

To understand Nietzsche's thinking on ethics and the problems of philosophy involved in ethics by constantly thinking of the master slave diad is a serious mistake. See the work of Brian Leiter, among others, on this.

Not2plato (talk) 03:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Conspicuous Absence

Academics must be pained to notice that Hegel's name does not appear in the list of Nietzsche's reading. They like to insist that the obscure Hegel was a strong influence on Nietzsche, even though his name appears very rarely in Nietzsche's writing.Lestrade 13:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

Philosophers sometimes assert that they are almost incapable of reading the work of other philosophers. —Cesar Tort 06:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Nietzsche had no trouble reading Plato, Spinoza, Kant, or Schopenhauer. He wrote very clearly about them, also.Lestrade 12:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Lestrade
So what's your point, Lestrade? Jlandahl 21:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


Nietzsche discussed Hegel and/or his influence (Hegelianism) in the first, second and third Meditations, in Daybreak, in Beyond Good and Evil, and in The Case of Wagner. None of his references to the king of idealism were positive. In all cases, he frets about the moral impact of Hegel, and about his corrosive influence on written German. N waged a lifelong war against obscurantism, and Hegel and Wagner were for him paradigmatic obscurantists.

Some historians seem to think N is part of the Hegelian school. He seems to be nothing of the sort from what I can tell. The absolute? Please! Hegel is a favorite of mystics and religious types, including mystics of history and politics, such as Marxists and anti-Marxists, including NeoCons.

Instead of the absolute, a self-conscious universal principle, Nietzsche grounded the world in will to power--a preconscious, spontaneous mental force. He can't be very Hegelian after that. Remember that Schopenhauer was disdainful of everything Hegelian, and N loved Schopenhauer like a father figure early in his career. Not2plato 00:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Causes of Mental Breakdown

One person has claimed the cause of Nietzsche's illness was an undiagnosed brain tumor;

http://home.cfl.rr.com/mpresley1/fn.pdf

Thanks for the reference to this important article. However, it doesn't justify a categorical, unconditional declaration that he had a brain tumor. It does justify a hypothetical, conjectural statement.Lestrade 12:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Lestrade
This essay looks to be quite well-researched; any idea if it will be appearing in a peer-reviewed journal? Jlandahl 21:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

As the headers of the article's pages imply, it has already been published in the Journal of Medical Biography, Feb 2003, Vol. 11, p. 47-54. According to this, this journal "...maintains high academic standards... Papers are peer reviewed...". The article is a reliable source. We can use its summary as a part of our article here. --Dead3y3 Talk page 04:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I don't normally comment on this page, but this falls more into my area of expertise (see my user page) and I have to agree. First of all the journal is emminently respectable, and has a well-known board of editors, published by a reputable publishing house. The article itself seems well-referenced and clearly argued. Given the difficulties in retrospectively ascertaining the cause of death with absolute certainty, I would suggest that this paper be prominently cited. I would suggest that something stronger than "hypothetical, conjectural statement" is appropriate here, but we certainly cannot categorically argue that the previous interpretation is incorrect. I think the best thing is to provide the alternative diagnosis, and a short summary of the relevant factors that make syphilis unlikely. Edhubbard 10:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, Sax' article was the cause of my first edit and discussion on (German) wikipedia nearly three years ago. Back then, I was more favorable towards it than today, as now I have read many of the other sources. So I think it could be mentioned in the article, but also it should be mentioned that the gros of Nietzsche scholars would still argue for syphilis. In fact, Sax quotes very selectively e.g. from S.L. Gilman and esp. from Pia Daniela Volz' Nietzsche im Labyrinth seiner Krankheit, the standard work on Nietzsche's illness (unfortunately not available in English - very unfortunate indeed since in my experience, esp. American scholars do not read anything not published in English, so at least a little applause for Sax); Sax' hypothesis about N's outstanding eye is not at all visible in the photograph he gives nor any other, perhaps except for this one; and it remains a fact that 1) all the doctors who really treated Nietzsche more or less agreed on syphilis 2) people who have done more research on N's life than admiring youths and superficial biographers relying on Elisabeth's writings (and N's own writings) do agree that syphilis is not at all unprobable. N. was not a saint.--Chef aka Pangloss 13:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Why aren't the best-known biographers of Nietzsche mentioned in the article: Stefan Zweig, Curt Paul Janz and Werner Ross (Zweig's bio is an absolute classic)? In particular, the section about N's mental breakdown needs some editing. The grandiose delusions in Ecce homo´s chapters —"Why I Am So Clever", "Why I Am So Wise", "Why I Write Such Good Books", "Why I am a destiny"— are a classic example of pre-psychotic schizophrenic breakdown. Nietzsche also wrote there that he carried upon his shoulders mankind's destiny. That's why Zweig's biography is important and even more Alice Miller's psychobiography on N. These grandeur delusions are a far cry from syphilis symptoms.
In his 1949 book about N, Karl Jaspers didn't buy the syphilis hypothesis. And for Kurt Kolle (Nietzsche, Krenkheit un Werk in Aktuelle Fragen der Psychiatrie und Neurologie II, Bibliotheca Psychiatrica et Neurologica, 127 Basel/NY 1965) N's disorder was "manic-depressive oscillations" (bipolar disorder). —Cesar Tort 14:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems like a smear campaign. What a person dies of doesn't negate their genius. -Timeloss 13:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Others have claimed Nietzsche was already insane.

Others have claimed he was insane, then contracted syphilis which worsened his mental state.

Others, still, adhere to the conventional theory written in textbooks that Nietzsche was merely an eccentric who caught syphilis, in particular, neurosyphilis, which causes paralysis, and the various biological manifestions via the pupils, language and behaviour, which clearly indicate this condition, which appears as dementia in Nietzsche (see; David Farrell Krell, and Donald L. Blates (1997). "The Good European: Nietzsche's Work Sites in Word and Image"). Syphilis is a degenerative disease which stays in the body for up to five decades, explaining much of Nietzsche's behaviour. Claims that Nietzsche was already insane is the minority view of a few academics who are refusing to allow two sides of the debate on this website.

Warning: Professional psychiatrists similarly categorized Ted Kaczynski as a paranoid schizophrenic, to ensure they wouldn't have to take his ideas seriously. The sad fact is that Nietzsche was an outsider whose beliefs were antithetical to mainstream belief; because of that, highly-socialized people who felt threatened by his ideas had to label him as mad. However, people don't write philosophy at Nietzsche's level simply because they've come down with syphilis; I imagine 19th-century German philosophy would have been a lot more interesting if that were so. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nietzsche's scatological breakdown

User:Mtevfrog just reverted this—:

In the 1889 diary for insane people in the Jena clinic, a report states that Nietzsche frequently covered himself with excrement and that he even ate his own excrements. (Ross, Werner (1989). Nietzsche: el águila angustiada [original title: Der ängstliche Adler: Friedrich Nietzsches Leben]. Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós, page 829. )

—stating in edit summary: "I don't think this is necessary to the article".

It's not a matter of what you "think" or not, Mtevfrog. Nietzsche had a classic psycho breakdown and you guys are speculating about "syphilis" and brain "tumors". The crude facts of N's biography must be known to the wiki readership. I repeat: have you read the above-cited biographers of N? Curt Paul Janz alone devoted the entire IV volume of his monumental bio to N's psycho breakdown and I have read it.

Unless you give me a valid reason of why the symptoms of N's disorder must be hidden from this article I will reinsert the above info again.

—Cesar Tort 16:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Mtevfrog and now RJC's removal of this detail. Many people's final illnesses are accompanied by disgusting symptoms, but they aren't necessary for understanding a person's life and work. There's no mention in the James Garfield article of the beef-bouillon enemas that the doctors used when he couldn't keep food in his stomach, for example. There have been differences of opinion about what Nietzche's breakdown was (tumor, schitzophrenia, syphilis), but this detail doesn't bear on that, either - it could have been caused by any of them. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 08:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

User:RJC wrote in edit summary: "removed sensationalistic trivia: not every true detail is relevant."

You guys are wrong!

I inserted the sentence just as a first step to edit the article about many more clinic details of N's conduct which demonstrates that N was psycho as hell: not the victim of syphilis or tumors as some editors believe. Coprophagia is a well-known behavior of a terminal stage in schizophrenic patients. I quote from page 425 Silvano Arieti's book Interpretation of Schizophrenia:

“ It is also not rare to see some patients grasping their own faces feces, chewing them, and eating them. ”

So it's not sensationalistic trivia: clinical data of N's breakdown is relevant to understand more than a decade of his regressive mental state. Failing to mention his scatological habits —censorship actually— can only help those who want to embellish N's life by imagining the relatively less grotesque condition of syphilis, etc.

If I don't see any valid reason explaining why his regressive behavior shouldn't appear in article, I'm afraid I will have to revert again.

—Cesar Tort 15:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not here for you to 'demonstrate that N was psycho as hell.' See original research. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 16:58, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Grasping their own faces? You mean feces.Lestrade 17:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

Thanks for the correction. I don't want to demonstrate any OR; just mention that N's symptoms have been considered by some biographers as psycho symptoms. (BTW, I didn't use "psycho as hell" in the sentence that was removed.) Why shouldn't N's psycho symptoms be revealed in article? Is that something that the article must silence? If so, why? They reveal the nature of N's mind after all. —Cesar Tort 18:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

In a nutshell, since several serious biographers mention details of N's psychiatric state shouldn't we do the same? —Cesar Tort 23:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Cesar Tort seems to be the only editor in favor of including this information. Some details of a person's life no doubt reveal things about them, but many such details are interesting only to those engaged in research on the subject. What does this fecal information convey? No one reading an encyclopedic entry on Nietzsche has navigated to that page because they want to know whether he is among the s&*t-eating philosophers: classing him among them because it suggests that he was insane does not therefore serve an informational purpose so much as a polemical one. The fact that Cesar Tort has carefully insinuated that Nietzsche should be disdained, without needing recourse to the phrase "psycho as hell" in the article itself, does not mean that he has kept within either the spirit or the letter of NPOV or NOR. Here is a question: does this information have value apart from what it insinuates, or the fact that it is salacious? I do not think so, and two other editors already expressed their opposition to it. I believe this is the beginning of Consensus. RJC Talk 06:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "The fact that Cesar Tort has carefully insinuated that Nietzsche should be disdained"

I don’t know what you mean. N used to be my favorite philosopher when I was a teenager.

  • "Here is a question: does this information have value apart from what it insinuates, or the fact that it is salacious?"

As stated above, my intention was to show that the picture you see about N in the biographies by Zweig, Janz, Ross and Miller is that of a psychiatric breakdown, not of a somatic disease. If I mentioned the coprophagia stuff it was to show that his mental symptoms were terrible indeed —very different behavior from tumor or syphilis symptoms. This way the reader is not misled by a bioreductionist interpretation (tumor or syphilis).

If you want to censor the coprophagia phrase, it’s ok with me but that’s not consensus: it’s called false consensus. I added a phrase about N’s "commanding the German emperor to go to Rome in order to be shot and summon the European powers to take military action against Germany" because it furthers the view of N’s breakdown as a typical schizo breakdown (unlike people suffering from florid psychoses, syphilis patients usually don’t have these sort of grandeur delusions).

My time to edit in Wikipedia is limited. I would recommend you guys to take a look at Stefan Zweig’s biography on N, which I referenced in article today. Walter Kaufmann considers Zweig’s study as unsurpassed in the psycho-biographies about N.

—Cesar Tort 16:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Alright, this probably has nothing to do with the relevance of excrement to Nietzsche's life, but a thing's being indicative of a psychiatric breakdown does not preclude the presence of disease. In particular, Syphilis can become Neurosyphilis, one of the symptoms of which is general paresis of the insane. The articles which deal with them note that "psychiatric abnormalities such as personality changes" are common. "Patients generally have progressive personality changes, memory loss, and poor judgement. More rarely, they can have psychosis, depression, or mania." So, Nietzsche's would not be a common progression, but his symptoms also fall well within typical patterns of syphilis. But again, this sort of debate would be relevant if our job were to determine the cause of Nietzsche's breakdown. RJC Talk 17:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
My point was merely to show that the above biographers, which you guys seem not having read —correct me if I'm wrong— give the picture of a tremendous mental warfare in N's head. They speculate this caused the breakdown. I'm not trying to push any OR (grandeur delusions are uncommon in syphilis patients, etc). I just have read the above biographies and I can see that the authors' depictions of N's condition aren't mentioned in the article. It's just that simple. Yes: Janz and Ross are available in German (and Spanish translations) only. That's why I pointed out to Zweig's study: it's available in the libraries of English-speaking countries. It's amazing though that the data of an important study such as Curt Paul Janz's Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie. Dritter Band. Die Jahre des Siechtmus, the fourth volume of his work, which deals mainly with almost twelve years of N's mental condition, is unmentioned in the article. —Cesar Tort 18:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

@Cesar Tort: I think you are right in promoting Janz' and Ross' biographies which seem to be the best ones available, but you should not misquote them. Both Janz and Ross more or less agree on progressive paralysis / neurolues due to syphilis which, by the way, also Jaspers took as "fast gewiß" (quoted by Janz). Of course all good biographers present or speculate on other hypotheses and concede that there is no absolute clarity on this issue. Also, I do not think that the approaches of Zweig and especially Miller, who has been ridiculed, are as important as you present them. If you are really interested in Nietzsche's illness(es) and the history of their reception, and as you seem to be willing and able to read German books, I repeat my suggestion to read Pia Daniela Volz' Nietzsche im Labyrinth seiner Krankheiten. Among many other things, it gives a complete reprint of the Jenaer Krankenreport from which you got the coprophagia story (which is not a sensation, it was published for the first time in the early 1930s).--Chef aka Pangloss 16:14, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Chef aka Pangloss. It's not my intention to misrepresent Ross or Janz. It was from Ross whom I extracted the info cited above:

In his 1949 book about N, Karl Jaspers didn't buy the syphilis hypothesis. And for Kurt Kolle (Nietzsche, Krenkheit un Werk in Aktuelle Fragen der Psychiatrie und Neurologie II, Bibliotheca Psychiatrica et Neurologica, 127 Basel/NY 1965) N's disorder was "manic-depressive oscillations" (bipolar disorder).

Of course, he cites progressive paralysis as well. However, Ross states on page 832 of my copy that the nonprofessional like him —i.e., a non-psychiatrist— simply cannot pronounce judgment about which diagnosis is the right one.
Janz mentions many theories as well: paralysis progressiva, Paul Julius Möbius long work on the pathology of N (syphilis) and Karl Jaspers, which doubted such diagnosis. Then Janz recounts dozens of recorded anecdotes of N's last twelve years, which sometimes suggest a catatonic condition. Janz's book is a mine of curious anecdotes to understand N's regressive disorder. It reminds me very strongly the regressive stages of a typical psycho breakdown.
  • "I do not think that the approaches of Zweig and especially Miller, who has been ridiculed, are as important as you present them."
I stated above that Walter Kaufmann wrote in his study of N that Zweig's psychobiography is still unsurpassed, and obviously Kaufmann's is a reliable opinion on this subject.
As to Miller, can you tell me where has she been ridiculed about her brief psychobiography of N? Are you talking about the journalist Ron Rosenbaum's book on Hitler?
—Cesar Tort 01:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Miller: I had in mind an essay in a book by Peter Haffner, Die fixe Idee, and a short rebuff in Andreas Urs Sommer's (Swiss N / philosophy scholar, German wikipedia article) voluminous commentary on N's Antichrist. Both find Miller's reading of Nietzsche (and others) extremely over-simplified. Btw, a more complete collection of "anecdotes" about N's years of illness is Sander Gilman's Begegnungen mit Nietzsche. I am sorry I have to rely on books in German language.--Chef aka Pangloss 15:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, Pangloss. I will use it in my own writing on N. —Cesar Tort 21:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nationality

There have been concerted efforts at describing Nietzsche as a "German" in the lede of the article. From the Manual of Style:

Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable. Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability.)

As no reliable sources have been asserted as to Nietzsche's citizenship, I am replacing the current version of the article, which is a gross simplification, with the previous version which has a lengthy note explaining in detail the complexity of the situation. Skomorokh incite 19:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted the introductory paragraph, which was worded to avoid saying that Nietzsche was a German and justified this avoidance with a footnote. This is because Nietzsche was a German by every measure by which we call other people Germans at the same time. Nietzsche may have considered himself something more, may have distanced himself from a German identity, but these stances on his part were necessary only because he was in fact German: no Frenchman had to distance himself from German identity in the same way. The arguments against calling him a German seem to be philosophically motivated, when what a reader is looking for from the first paragraph is a vague sense of where he lived and what language he spoke. "Continental" does not get this information across, and indeed seems to emphasize that he was a continental philosopher rather than an analytic philosopher. RJC Talk 19:26, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree with your view on the inadequacy of "continental", when piped to continental philosophy, but you have offered no proof of citizenship as is required for asserting nationality (per above). Potentially deceiving people about the basic facts of the subject is hardly any way to start an encyclopaedia article. I am changing the "Continental" to European, which gives a vague but entirely accurate sense of where he lived and what languages he spoke. I cannot understand the removal of the footnote, which clarifies matters very well, in any case. Skomorokh incite 19:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Wow. I made the edit, said I would explain it on the talk page, and before I even finish writing the explanation it's reverted! I wonder ... How could he have known that the reason for my change was without merit without reading the justification that I promised would follow while making it? I wonder if the fact that in Skomorokh'ssignature the link to his user talk page is "incite" offers any clue. (The order of the comments here does not follow the order of the edits made to the main page)
In any case, if something requires explanation, it belongs in the body of the text, not in a footnote. And while the complexities of Nietzsche's nationality could conceivably be a topic within the article, it is certainly tangential enough to leave out of the opening paragraphs. In those paragraphs, where we are giving a short summary of a complex issue, some simplification is bound to occur, and we should learn to live with it.
Update: Just checked the talk page while writing this, and it turns out that Skomorokh has already drafted his reply. To his points: calling Nietzsche "German" is not deceptive, or potentially deceptive. Saxony and Prussia, the places of his ancestry and birth, were German. Were anyone asked at the time to categorized someone from these places (outside of what became Germany), they would have called him a German. On the contrary, it is the push to refuse to call Nietzsche a German that seems to the greater probability of misleading a reader who just wants to know a little bit more about Nietzsche, some guy the reader's heard about and has some interest in. "German" gets information across that "European" does not. As to the suggestion that European gives some vague sense of his life and language, I think it gives too vague of a sense.
As to the bit about the Manual of Style, could Skomorokh be more specific about where he is getting this? It is not on WP:Style or WP:Lead. RJC Talk 19:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I apologise, I saw your edit summary "Restored Nietzsche's nationality. See Talk", went to the talkpage to see what you were referring to, and found no discussion of what Nietzsche's nationality should be stated as, so I started one. I apparently misinterpreted "See Talk" as you saying that the talkpage justified your edit, which at the time it did not. The Manual of Style reference is taken verbatim from WP:MOSBIO. Until it is proven here that Nietzsche was a German citizen, any assertion of notability is POV. Perhaps the nationality footnote should be accommodated into the text, but it was originally created to keep the lede concise. I agree European is too vague, but it's as specific as we can verifiably get at this stage. Regards, Skomorokh incite 20:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the information. The policy seems to support calling Nietzsche a German, however. Looking to WP:MOSBIO, one of the two paradigms they give is Petrarch, whom it calls "an Italian scholar, poet, and early Renaissance humanist." Obviously, "Italian" cannot refer to citizenship, as there was no Italian state at the time. The MOS says that nationality is to be noted in the opening paragraphs, saying that in the normal case this will be determined by citizenship. Nietzsche is clearly not a normal case, having renounced his Prussian citizenship. He is analogous to Petrarch, however, in having lived before there was a Germany; we have no difficulty calling Petrarch an Italian even though there was no Italy. Because nationality is not identical with citizenship, however, we can call people Germans and Italians in the absence of states. There isn't really a problem in terms of NPOV or verifiability, here. The question is rather this: Shall we call someone who was born in Prussia, held Prussian citizenship from birth, joined the Prussian artillery regiment and served in the Prussian army during the Franco-Prussian war — all of this as Prussia was about to declare itself the German Empire — and who spoke and wrote in German, a German? The pages for Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Goethe, ad infinitum, all call their subjects Germans, even though every single last one of them died before there was a German citizenship to be had. This suggests a strong consensus on how the policy is to be put into practice. Since the official policy suggests that Nietzsche should be called a German, and other biographical entries dealing with subjects in analogous situations do not hesitate to call people German, I will therefore restore Nietzsche's nationality to "German." RJC Talk 20:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
The problem with dubbing Nietzsche "German" tout court arises from specific changes in the meaning of the term "German" -- changes which just happened to coincide with Nietzsche's career. -- Prior to 1871, "German" could refer to a vaguely-defined cultural agglomeration in central Europe or to the use of the German language. In this sense Kant and Hegel and Goethe etc count definitively as "German" -- with no ambiguity, just as Petrarch counted as Italian. -- But in 1871 the culmination of German nationalism and state-building occurred with the formation of the German Empire (the second Reich). The word "German" thereafter came more specifically to refer to citizens of said Empire. Prior to 1871, you could call the King of Prussia a German monarch; after 1871 you could still use the same words ("German monarch") but they had come to mean something somewhat different. Outside the borders of the new empire, for example, Austrian German-speakers became less definitively "German" after 1871. And Nietzsche, who lived "outside" mainly in Switzerland and Italy, took no part in the new and increasingly important aspect of Germanness. -- I don't see speaking of Nietzsche as "German" as wrong -- just very ambiguous and potentially misleading under the circumstances. Hence the attempt to by-pass the nationality-issue altogether in the overview/opening paragraph, while providing detail (ancestry/birth/citizenship/residence/statelessness/internationalism) elsewhere -- in a footnote or in some subsequent section. The WP:MOSBIO guidelines (not policy) on nationality don't appear to apply very well in this particular case, so let's show some boldness in departing from them. -- I see another minefield/issue in referring to Nietzsche as a "German philosopher" in the opening -- this appears to pile ambiguity on ambiguity. It may imply the possible existence of a distinctively German form of philosophy (possible, but arguable) and of Nietzsche's membership in the mainstream of that philosophical school/strand (just possible, but even more arguable, I suspect). Hence my clumsy and premature attempt to dub Nietzsche a "Continental philosopher", which just led to a different ambiguity-error. -- Let's avoid the confusion, omit any mention of specific nationality in the opening paragraph, and spell out the details at leisure and in a more balanced manner elsewhere. -- Pedant17 01:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that there is a lot of ambiguity involved in discussing nationality, but the Wikipedia community has already decided how to handle it, as evidenced by the policy and its implementation on other pages that would face the same problem. Just check the pages linked to on Category:19th century German philosophers. Wikipedia's admonishment to Be bold concerns facts, grammar, etc., not policy. I don't think removal of Nietzsche's nationality is warranted in this case. RJC Talk 23:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
We appear to have agreement on the existence of an ambiguity issue -- but not on the best way of handling it. The Wikipedia community has developed guidelines on how to introduce a subject's nationality, but WP:MOSBIO remains a guideline: not a policy. To quote from WP:MOSBIO: "...guidelines for maintaining visual and textual consistency. Adherence to the following guidelines is not required; however, usage of these guidelines is recommended...The opening paragraph should give: ... 3. Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable. Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability.)" -- Note the phrasing: "in the normal case". Nietzsche does not fall into the normal case, and his article may profit from special treatment. -- Note too one of the paradigmatic examples given in WP:MOSBIO for an opening: "Cleopatra VII Philopator (December 70 BC/January 69 BC - c. August 12, 30 BC) was a queen of ancient Egypt. She was the last member of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty to rule Egypt" No nationality here: only a passing reference to ethnicity. Special cases seem to call for special bending of the guidelines... I suggest that my fellow-Wikipedians might like to follow the policy (rather than the guideline) of ignoring all rules with a view to collaborating on the improvement of the introduction to this article. -- The suggestion that we should compare the pages linked to Category:19th century German philosophers begs the question as to whether we can appropriately refer to Nietzsche as a "German philosopher". A more appropriate comparison might involve comparing the treatment of the nationality-issue in the opening paragraphs of articles linked to Stateless person, where we currently find a section devoted to "Famous stateless/formerly stateless people" and linking to: Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche (yes: our subject!), Elie Wiesel, and Anne Frank. For that matter, many emigrants/immigrants have fluctuating/uncertain citizenship, and Nietzsche forms no exception. -- The Wikipedia call for boldness in WP:BOLD "is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception". Moreover, it encourages boldness in "mak[ing] sure the wording is accurate, etc." -- precisely the focus of our discussions on Nietzsche's label as "German". -- I quite agree that we should not remove discussion of Nietzsche's nationality (Prussian, then stateless). Nor should we shy away from Nietzsche's background in the German-speaking cultural tradition. Rather: we should treat the matter with the detail and accuracy it merits -- and we face difficulties doing that within the brief compass of the opening sentence of the article. Hence the suggestions of placing the details in a footnote or later in the main body of the article's text. -- Pedant17 06:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Werner Ross’ thick biography (865 pages in the Spanish translation), Der angstliche Adler: Friedrich Nietzsches Leben starts with Karl Ludwig Nietzsche, N’s father, happy in Röcken because N had been born on 15 October 1844 —the very birthday celebration of the king Wilhelm. So he named N Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, states Ross. —Cesar Tort 20:50, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
The notion that the entry should not begin by describing Nietzsche as a German philosopher is absurd. Despite all the arguments by the accurately-monikered user Pedant17, nothing could be more clear than that Nietzsche is a German philosopher, that he should be described as such, and that he is described as such in every relevant text. It is time for Pedant17 to end this campaign, on the grounds that support for describing Nietzsche as anything other than a German philosopher in the opening of the article is distinctly lacking. BCST2001 01:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
You have just asserted your opinion without providing any argument in favour of it. Please avoid unconstructive statements and engage with the issues discussed so that we may move towards consensus. Skomorokh incite 18:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Skomorokh, I understand what you are saying. However: I consider the fact that no texts have been cited describing Nietzsche as anything other than a German philosopher to be an argument in favor of describing Nietzsche as a German philosopher. I consider the fact that Pedant17 has been conducting a longstanding and persistent campaign to remove the description of Nietzsche as a German philosopher, while receiving virtually no support, to be an argument against Pedant17's position (and for the greatest part of that campaign Pedant17 has made no attempt to seek consensus or argue his case). Without supporting references, and without support from other users, Pedant17 ought, in my opinion, drop the campaign. To Pedant 17: name an encyclopedia that begins its entry on Nietzsche by describing him as anything other than a German philosopher, and find some supporters for your position, or accept there is no consensus for the position for which you are arguing. BCST2001 18:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
No citations currently exist in the article to suggest that one should label Nietzsche as a "German philosopher" or not a "German philosopher. I realize that one could readily find a quotation justifying the phrase "German philosopher". But the issue in the opening sentence of the opening paragraph remains one of clarity and unambiguous accuracy. I summarized the facts as I see them thus: 'Nietzsche had Saxon ancestry, Prussian birth, Swiss residence, declared statelessness and an international intellectual outlook/influence: he never held citizenship of the German Empire; and he wrote philology and belles lettres alongside philosophy. Labelling him a "German philosopher" (as sometimes happens) would seem overly simplistic.' We can refine citations for each of the stated facts as required. -- I never realized that I had conducted a campaign on this matter -- I thought I simply persistently tried to improve the accuracy of the article from time to time, placing relevant information before readers so that the article could avoid simplistic formulations which might risk violating the WP:NPOV neutral point-of-view. I realize that crude categorization into little boxes labeled "Nationality" occurs commonly, but I had hoped that a modern and comprehensive encyclopedia such as Wikipedia could avoid such pitfalls. -- Naming a tertiary source, "an encyclopedia that begins its entry on Nietzsche by describing him as anything other than a German philosopher" would not alter the internal force of the argument against making simplistic labeling prominent in the opening sentences. And I have no objection to seeing Nietzsche described as a "German philosopher" within the article -- provided we define our terms and note the countervailing facts on this matter as well. -- But quite apart from that, I did come across a couple of reference works which discuss Nietzsche without apparently feeling the need for nationality-labeling: see Edward Craid (editor): The Shorter Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy Abingdon: Routledge, 2005, pages 726-741; and Simon Blackburn: The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 252-253. -- I happily accept that no WP:Consensus currently exists for the sort of wording that I advocate. Hence the need for some painstaking analysis and discussion in this Talk-page, leaving aside mere spirited assertions, and sticking to facts. -- Pedant17 06:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'M NO EXPERT BUT DIDNT HE CONSIDER HIMSELF POLISH?: There were two other children in the house. One was a boy, Josef, who was named after the Duke of Altenburg, and died in infancy in 1850. The other was a girl, Therese Elisabeth Alexandra, who became in after years her brother's housekeeper, guardian angel and biographer. Her three names were those of the three noble children her father had grounded in the humanities. Elisabeth - who married toward middle age and is best known as Frau Förster-Nietzsche - tells us practically all that we know about the Nietzsche family and the private life of its distinguished son. ((1)) The clan came out of Poland, like so many other families of Eastern Germany, at the time of the sad, vain wars. Legend maintains that it was noble in its day and Nietzsche himself liked to think so. The name, says Elisabeth, was originally Nietzschy. "Germany is a great nation," Nietzsche would say, "only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.... I am proud of my Polish descent. I remember that in former times a Polish noble, by his simple veto, could overturn the resolution of a popular assembly. There were giants in Poland in the time of my forefathers." He wrote a tract with the French title L'Origine de la famille de Nietzsche and presented the manuscript to his sister, as a document to be treasured and held sacred. She tells us that he was fond of maintaining that the Nietzsches had suffered greatly and fallen from vast grandeur for their opinions, religious and political. He had no proof of this, but it pleased him to think so. http://www.geocities.com/danielmacryan/nietzsche1.html#para0 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.163.88 (talk) 04:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought: I am the last one to disagree that calling N a "German philosopher" is over-simplistic, but so is calling Goethe a German writer, or Shakespeare an English poet, or da Vinci an Italian polymath. But: They all come without a description and a footnote that not only again prolongs the legend of Polish ancestry (read Radwan coat of arms for the Let's-bet-it's-not-the-last-attempt to get this out of "My-primary-research-base-is-called-Google"-heads) but also gives some utterly marginalic facts to frighten and confuse readers and does little to clear up the simplification by referring to phrases as undefined as "belles lettres" or, again, over-simplistic as "German cultural tradition". I mean, I recognize the problem, but this solution is in no way better. The text you try to improve is an introduction to an encyclopedia article, perhaps it cannot solve a problem on which you could write a book?--Chef aka Pangloss 03:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

For Goethe in his capacity as a writer (as opposed to a scientist and a philosopher) the importance of form and his use of the German language and the non-existence of a definitive German nation-state in his lifetime mean we can readily refer to him as a "German writer" -- despite the vagueness of the term "German cultural tradition". Shakespeare unambiguously straddles English-language-writing and English citizenship: I see no dispute in labeling him "English", though I agree that "poet" scarcely does him full justice, Da Vinci parallels Nietzsche in his internationalism and lack of a modern-equivalent nation-state to belong to: surely we think of him in terms greater than just "Italian" -- Renaissance man, European artist and inventor, archetypal great Florentine.. -- Thanks for the reference to the interesting and convincing details in Radwan coat of arms. I conclude from them that we can note in passing the legend of Polishness, if only as an insubstantial Nietzsche family tradition, only incidentally undermining any idea of any self-perception Nietzsche's part as monoculturally German/Prussian/Saxon. -- I would happily exclude reference to "the German cultural tradition" in the opening sentence, shearing the article-head of any simplistic controversial nationalistic/ethnic/cultural references. But we do need, I feel, to portray somewhere (perhaps decently hidden in an obscure footnote) the issues of Nietzsche's (non-)nationality and (perhaps somewhere else) his transcendence as a writer of the merely philosophical. -- Pedant17 01:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by a writer of the "merely philosophical," considering that Nietzsche's conception of the philosopher is among highest human types, if not the highest. I don't think that Nietzsche shared your disdain for philosophy, especially as he refused to sully the category with such "laborers" as Kant and Hegel. As to omitting all reference to Nietzsche's nationality in the opening sentence, the Manual of Style Biography page is quite explicit on this point. And, as I noted when we went over this last month, one of its paradigmatic examples involves a situation similar to this one; none of the other pages referring to German-ish persons living at the foundation of the German Empire seems to have a problem with calling them Germans. They certainly don't have to defend the opening sentences against the sort of alterations which are episodically attempted regarding Nietzsche. RJC Talk 18:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Nietzsche worked as a philologist before he veered into more philosophical paths. The opening paragraph could reflect that fact as well -- and not "merely" his designation as a philosopher. -- The proposed omission of reference to Nietzsche's nationality (or better: his lack of a conventional official nationality during the most productive period of his career) serves merely as an attempt to avoid distortion and to allow expression of various viewpoints on the matter to take place elsewhere in a less confining and less strictly limited environment. The Wikipedia Biography Manual of Style (a mere guideline) does not explicitly demand a nationality for every biography: indeed, it acknowledges that exceptions will exist: Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable...). The "normal case" implies the existence of non-normal cases, and Nietzsche exemplifies the non-normal case: a self-exiled stateless person who talked up his imagined Polish ancestry while watching his native turf amalgamate into a new pan-North-German state. -- The paradigmatic example of Petrarch in the Wikipedia Biography Manual of Style does not provide a good analogy for Nietzsche's situation. Much of Petrarch's fame and significance for posterity relates to his cultivation of the Italian language at a time when it had little status -- that constitutes his chief claim to classification as an "Italian". Petrarch's lifetime did not see the formation of an Italian nation-state to which national labels became attached. Nietzsche's lifetime saw the forging of such a state in the German linguistic area; but Nietzsche himself did not become a citizen of that state, and continued to live outside it during his productive peak and prior to his mental collapse. In this he acted differently from many of his contemporaries, other "German-ish persons living at the foundation of the German Empire" (the very word "German-ish" expresses some of the ambiguity). All such persons have now died and do not have to defend anything. But the way in which Wikipedia treats some of the German émigrés of the period may provide instructive hints. Max Müller, who spent most of career outside of Central Europe, appears in his Wikipedia article as "a German philologist and Orientalist -- with "German" linked to German Confederation -- a somewhat unsatisfying attempt to make him German yet not a German of Germany. And Karl Marx (born like his fellow-philosopher and fellow-Germanophone Nietzsche on Prussian-acquired soil), appears simply as "a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary" -- with no mention of anything to do with matters German in the opening paragraph, let alone in the opening sentence. -- Let's not muddy the waters by highlighting Nietzsche's "Germanness", but treat the subject with restraint and balance and a respect for the predilections of the man himself. -- Pedant17 02:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Pedant17 has denied waging a campaign to rid the article of any reference to Nietzsche's being a German (reply to BCST2001, 06:24, 25 August 2007 [UTC]). The actions which led (I surmise) BCST2001 to characterize this as a campaign have continued unabated. This seems to be a long-standing project of Pedant17's, so I note the times he has made this attempt. September 21, 2006; December 22, 2006; January 16, 2007; March 12, 2007; April 7, 2007; May 9, 2007; June 11, 2007; July 6, 2007; July 30, 2007; August 21, 2007; September 20, 2007; October 30, 2007; and, most recently, November 26, 2007. The last two attempts referred to the talk page, but no justification was given here. I find it unseemly to single someone out this way, but this has gotten ridiculous. RJC Talk 01:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I have never "denied waging a campaign" -- I have simply pointed out that I try to improve the article from time to time. Part of such improvement involves de-highlighting the very questionable label of Nietzsche as a "German philosopher" in the lead-sentence/paragraph. -- I know of no move "to rid the article of any references to Nietzsche's" alleged Germanness. On the contrary, I have written here (and I quote) "Nor should we shy away from Nietzsche's background in the German-speaking cultural tradition. Rather: we should treat the matter with the detail and accuracy it merits -- and we face difficulties doing that within the brief compass of the opening sentence of the article." (Note of 25 August). -- It may "seem" like a long-standing project,-- I see it rather as a periodic series of edits within an overall context of improving the article for accuracy and style; and I invite anyone to consider this "German-ness" point in the context of my other edits within the article, made on the dates helpfully listed above. -- As noted above, my last two edits have referred to the talk page: they bore the Edit-summaries:
  1. (copyedit; align nationality with Talk-page-state-of-play pending discussion there.) (27 November 2007)
  2. (copyedits; align to Talk-page discussion on nationality) (31 October 2007)
In each of these two cases I referred to the state of the discussion on the Talk=page, where no arguments, let alone valid arguments, had appeared to counter my reasoned explanations for the non-necessity of confusingly highlighting Nietzsche's alleged nationality in the lead. I still await such arguments; or at least a discussion here as to why my points may appear unsatisfactory. It may appear "ridiculous", but nevertheless we need to discuss the matter.
Pending and feeding into such discussion, I note that Nietzsche "relinquished his Prussian citizenship" circa February 1869 (after appointment to Basel): see: Ruediger Safranski, Nietzsche: a philosophical biography. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002, ISBN 978-0393050080 page 358. [Translated by Shelley Frisch from Nietzsche: Biographie seines Denkens. Munich: Carl Hanser, 2000. ISBN 978-3446199385 ]
Also I note a lack of defined nationality in the opening words of versions of the Wikipedia articles on:
Several of them well-known "Germans"...
And some people with doubtful/confusing nationalities:
In the light of all this, I suggest we remove any misleading "German" tag from the opening paragraph and add a separate sub-section -- perhaps at the end of the "Biography" section, reading something like:
Nietzsche had [[Saxony | Saxon]] ancestry, [[Prussia]]n birth, a Polish self-image,<ref> See [[Radwan coat of arms]] for a discussion of Nietzsche's self-perception as a Pole. </ref>[[Switzerland | Swiss]] residence, declared statelessness and an international intellectual outlook/influence: he never held citizenship of the [[German Empire]].<br><br>Nietzsche "relinquished his Prussian citizenship" circa February 1869 (after appointment to Basel).<ref>Ruediger Safranski, ''Nietzsche: a philosophical biography''. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002, ISBN 978-0393050080 page 358. [Translated by Shelley Frisch from ''Nietzsche: Biographie seines Denkens''. Munich: Carl Hanser, 2000. ISBN 978-3446199385 ]</ref> and operated thereafter as a stateless person.
-- Pedant17 (talk) 06:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Just a note: Nietzsche was officially released (? sorry, don't know the correct English term) from Prussian citizenship on April 17, 1869. The document is still in the Nietzsche-Archiv and is reprinted in the Colli-Montinari edition of the letters and also in the articles by His and Hecker - see footnotes of the article. (Is Safranski unaware of all this?).--Chef aka Pangloss (talk) 20:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the detail. I presume Safranski, given his subject-matter, had a greater interest in the decision to abandon Prussianness (rather than the granting of the application), and he noted the process in passing while constructing a time-line and without giving a precise date. -- 01:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Summary of nationality issues

Points of agreement:

  • Nietzsche originated in a German-speaking milieu
  • Nietzsche wrote his oeuvre in the German language

Potential points of difference:

  • Whether we should mention nationality in the introductory paragraph. (I contend that highlighting nationality in this way in the case of Nietzsche would potentially confuse culture with citizenship.)
    • The extent to which WP:MOSBIO prescribes giving a nationality. (I view WP:MOSBIO as a guideline rather than as a prescription, which lists what an opening paragraph "should" (rather than "must") have. The alternative view expects a nationality; I have given numerous examples of articles which do not conform to this ideal.)
    • Whether to present Nietzsche's nationality as "Prussian" or as "stateless". (WP:MOSBIO suggests: "In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable." Nietzsche's case ill-fits this norm; he changed from "Prussian" to "stateless" in 1869, before he achieved notability.)
  • Whether to mention ethnicity in the introductory paragraph. (I see no need to highlight Nietsche's German ethnicity in this way, and have seen no argments in favor of doing so.)
    • The extent to which WP:MOSBIO proscribes mentioning ethnicity. ([[WP:MOSBIO] states: "Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability." Do we have such a relevance?)
  • Whether Nietzsche operated in his heyday as part of an identifiable tradition of 'German philosophy". (This topic has scope for subjective argument, but I've not seen the case made on our talk-page. Nietzsche seems to derive more from the Greek tradition than the German, but note the apparent need to rehabilitate his German background: see Nicholas Martin (ed), Nietzsche and the German Tradition (Oxford; Peter Lang, 2003) -- especially the Preface.

I invite pertinent discussion of these and any other relevant topics on this Talk-page. Otherwise I propose, once again, that we remove any misleading/simplistic "German" tag from the opening paragraph and add relevant material to the "Biography" section, conveying the fatcs:

Nietzsche had [[Saxony | Saxon]] ancestry, [[Prussia]]n birth, a Polish self-image,<ref> See [[Radwan coat of arms]] for a discussion of Nietzsche's self-perception as a Pole.</ref>[[Switzerland | Swiss]] residence, declared statelessness and an international intellectual outlook/influence: he never held citizenship of the [[German Empire]].<br><br>At the time of his appointment to Basel, Nietzsche applied for the annullment of his Prussian citizenship<ref>''Er beantragte also bei der preussischen Behoerde seine Expatrierung'' [Translation:] "He accordingly applied to the Prussian authorities for expatrification". Curt Paul Janz: ''Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie'' volume 1. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1978, page 263.</ref> The official response came in a document dated [[17 April]] 1869.<ref>German text available as ''Entlassungsurkunde fuer den Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche aus Naumburg'' in Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari: ''Nietzsche Briefwechsel: Kritische Gesamtausgabe''. Part I, Volume 4. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993. ISBN 3 11 012277 4, page 566.</ref> Janz comments:<blockquote>Von diesem Tage an war Nietzsche also staatsrechtlich kein Preusse und kein Deutscher mehr, sondern ... staatenlos, oder, wie der Terminus damals in der Schweiz lautetet, heimatlos, was auf Nietzsche besonders zutrifft, und er blieb es... Er wurde und blieb <i>Europaeer</i>. [Translation:] So from this day onwards Nietzsche, in terms of international law, was no longer a prussian and no longer a German, but ... stateless, or in the terminology used in Switzerland at that time, "homeland-less", which was particularly appropriate for Nietzsche; and he remained so... He became and remained a ''European''[italics in original].<ref>Curt Paul Janz: ''Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie'' volume 1. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1978, pages 263 - 264</ref> </blockquote>

-- Pedant17 (talk) 01:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

  • “Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality.” Source: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Fixer1234 (talk) 05:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
  • “Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher, almost wholly neglected during his sane life...” Source: Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction (See Preview on Amazon)Fixer1234 (talk) 05:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Britannica says of Nietzsche: “German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers.”Fixer1234 (talk) 05:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
  • This college course on Nineteenth Century German Philosophy includes Nietzsche. One of the books listed on the syllabus is German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. This demonstrates that it is acceptable to classify Nietzsche as German in academia.Fixer1234 (talk) 05:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
  • You are correct to suggest that Nietzsche's relationship to his Nationality is complex. Yes, he renouced his citizenship. This all should be addressed in the article. However, I think it is clear that he is generally classified as a “German” philosopher. (See links above.) While he responds to a wide range of philosophical traditions (including, as you point out, Ancient Greek Philosophy) he is in the German tradition. His is clearly influence by Arthur Schopenhauer, and he spends much time writing about Immanuel Kant and German idealism in general. I should also note Kant, Schopenhauer, and other German philosophers are identified as such in their biographies. (Click through the list of philosophers in the lead of the Idealism article for more examples).Fixer1234 (talk) 06:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that a widespread habit exists of classifying Nietzsche as a "German philosopher" and indeed as a "German". But we need to determine here whether that common perception has sufficient accuracy and weight to merit a mention in our lead sentence -- as opposed to elsewhere -- in the Wikipedia article. If we had to mention a single nationality (and we don't need to) we would have to say "Prussian". -- Thanks for addressing the place of Nietzsche in the German philosophic tradition. Certainly Kant and Schopenhauer had influence on Nietzsche -- but as the article makes clear, he turned against both. We could classify British-nationality philosophers in the Kantian mould as "in the German tradition" -- more so than Nietzsche. Any phrasing as slick as "German philosopher" does not do Nietzsche justice. -- We have discussed previously (see above) the labelling of other "German philosophers ... identified as such in their biographies." That approach assumes in advance that we classify Nietzsche as a "German philosopher" or by some such nationalistic/school-label, and fails to take into account the changing nature of German nationality in Nietzsche's own time and in his individual case. Once again, and as mentioned previously, Wikipedia does not label Karl Marx in his lead section as either a "German" or as a "German philosopher". -- Pedant17 (talk) 00:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
  • 2¢: If Neitzsche were identified here as other than a "German" philosopher, Wikipedia would have the dubious distinction of being the only tertiary reference source to do so. Although I am all for pioneering new ground if necessary, this is not an issue that warrants any effort in that direction. Let's end this ultimatley value-less hair-splitting and move all this energy elsewhere, i.e. one of the many articles requiring much-needed work. Alcmaeonid (talk) 15:56, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
But see above for a couple of reference works which discuss Nietzsche without apparently feeling the need for nationality-labeling: Edward Craid (editor): The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of philosophy. Abingdon: Routledge, 2005, pages 726-741; and Simon Blackburn: The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 252-253. Perhaps the editors and writers of those tomes simply forgot to highlight Germanness. Perhaps they considered it unimportant. Perhaps they swim with some new paradigm which disregards neat nationalistic labels... -- Pedant17 (talk) 00:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More Texts that call Nietzsche "German": This should settle the issue

Sorry for the long post. Let me first say, that I agree with user User: Alcmaeonid that the energy being put into this debate would best be spent elsewhere. However, I think it is also important that we clear up this issue. The following material should leave no doubt that the "German" label is not only appropriate, but standard and supported by professional philosophical literature.

  • Firstly, I don't think anyone here is arguing that it would be inappropriate to discuss the fine points of Nietzsche's national identity and his complex relationship with (to use Pedant17's word) “Germanness”. In fact it seems to me entirely appropriate given that fact that he renounced his German citizenship and (to quote the article from the Stanford Encyclopedia) “led wandering, gypsy-like existence as a stateless person.” This fact is not only an important biographical detail, it also might inform the way we read certain passages of Nietzsche's work. The last time I checked, there is a section about this point in the current version of the article. I suggest Pedant17 and anyone else who is concerned with this issue work to improve that section of the article.
I agree wholeheartedly, and wish to thank the Wikipedians who collaborated with me in refining the material in the section Friedrich Nietzsche#Note on citizenship, nationality and ethnicity. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
  • The section is useful. I think it would be best, however, if we find English Language sources for the section on Nietzsche's nationality. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with translated sources, however, I don't see a reason to use them when there are plenty of English Language sources that discuss Nietzsche's change in citizenship, etc. Since these sources will be more accessible to the users who are most likely to use the English Wikipedia, it seems best to use them if possible. Take a look at the article from the Standford Encyclopedia for starters. The article What Was Nietzsche’s Nationality? by Daniel Blue (The Journal of Nietzsche Studies - Issue 31, Spring 2007, pp. 73-82) might also be helpful. (Users who have access to Project Muse, click here)Fixer1234 (talk) 03:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
When available, the English-language Wikipedia prefers English-language sources. Though it seems unlikely that the Prussian authorities would issue an English-language document. Note too that German-language sources may have a better local feel for the multiple distinctions of citizenship and birth within the various German states in the 19th century. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Now on to the texts: Pedant17 writes that The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy does not feel “the need for nationality-labeling”. I assume he is referring to the fact that SREP does not refer to Nietzsche as a “German Philosopher" in the lead of its article about the man. However, in the biographical section it does say: “'Nietzsche was offered free admission to Pforta, the most famous school in Germany” (728). Pforta is in the area that was Prussia. The SREP also says that Nietzsche's “last seven books mark a high point of German prose style” (728). Pendant has argued, "If we had to mention a single nationality (and we don't need to) we would have to say Prussian." Clearly, given the quotes above, the editors of SREP feel that "German" and "Germany" are adequate.
The Shorter Routledge refers in these passages to Germany as a "geographical expression" and to the German language; whereas our primary problem consists in dealing with the somewhat different question of nationality (per WP:MOSBIO). That guideline currently states: "In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable." One does not necessarily classify as a German by attending a German school (compare Queen Sofía of Spain), nor yet by writing in the German language (many Austrians and not a few Swiss would maintain the contrary). On this evidence, the Shorter Routledge maintains its neutrality/silence in the matter of Nietzsche's nationality. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Granted--Germany is a Geographical expression, and "German" here refers to a language that is the primary language for both the Austrians and the Swiss. However, I think the fact that SREP refers to Pforta as being in Germany rather than Prussia dispels any notion that we should call Nietzsche "Prussian".Fixer1234 (talk) 03:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Pforta at the time of Nietzsche's attendance lay in Prussian territory: see Pforta#Boarding School. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had long gone (1806), and the German Empire had yet to materialize (1871). "Germany" in this context means about as much as "Central Europe". One cannot talk of a specific German citizenship prior to 1871. And citizenship remains the issue here, per the Wikipedia Manual of Style -- not where someone went to school. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
  • The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy also makes it clear that we should have no problem thinking about Nietzsche as a member of the German tradition and calling him German.
  • In the Article “EXISTENTIALIST THEOLOGY”; “The entire movement has been strongly influenced, directly or indirectly, by the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher-theologian Søren Kierkegaard, while the works of the Russian novelist Fëdor Dostoevskii and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, both from the late nineteenth century, have also been important.”
Just another throw-away case of the standardly ambiguous phrase "German philosopher". Does it mean "German-national philosopher" or "philosopher in the German tradition"? Can we tell in this case? Can we avoid/resolve the ambiguity in our own encyclopedia? -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
  • The Article “EMERSON, RALPH WALDO (1803–82), says,"He [Emerson] influenced the German philosophical tradition through Nietzsche – whose The Gay Science carries an epigraph from ‘History’ – and the Anglo-American tradition via William James and John Dewey.”
It doesn't help us particulary to note that Nieztsche played an intermediary role in influencing "the German philosophical tradition". He also influenced the French tradition and the American tradition... -- that doesn't prove that we should call him an American philosopher... -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
As stated above on 2007-08-25 (perhaps with some degree of understatement): "I realize that one could readily find a quotation justifying the phrase "German philosopher". That still leaves the problem: do we highlight this ambiguous commonplace in our lead sentence? I have to ask: why does the article currently label Nietzsche as a "German philosopher" in the lead sentence without supporting material: without discussing "German philosophy" and Nieztsche's place in it within the body of the article? Do we have an imbalance here at the moment? As I also stated above on 2007-08-25, "I have no objection to seeing Nietzsche described as a "German philosopher" within the article". Working on that theme in the article might clarify at least part of our issue. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Pedant seems to feel it is not appropriate to call Nietzsche German in the lead of the article. He writes: "But we need to determine here whether that common perception has sufficient accuracy and weight to merit a mention in our lead sentence -- as opposed to elsewhere -- in the Wikipedia article." Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction, a 120 page book about Nietzsche, refers to the philosopher as German in its lead. Roger Scruton, Christopher Janaway, Keith Thomas and the other editors and contributors to German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche refer to Nietzsche as German in the lead of the article about him in the book. (See here). PAGE ONE of The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche reads: "The importance to the humanities and to our culture of the nineteenth-century German philosopher and writer Friedrich Nietzsche...". Given these examples, I would say the "common perception" that Nietzsche is German "has sufficient accuracy and weight" to be mentioned in the lead sentence.
That "common perception" certainly exists -- and remains as ambiguous as ever. Wikipedia can do better -- at the very least by stripping out the categories of nationality and of philosophical school and treating them separately. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Pedant17 has characterized the phrase "German philosopher" as "slick". He has said it "does not do Nietzsche justice." He has spoken of "simplistic controversial nationalistic/ethnic/cultural references." He has suggested some editors find the German label unimportant, and speculated that "they swim with some new paradigm which disregards neat nationalistic labels." In response, I says this: If scholars like Bernd Magnus and Kathleen Marie Higgins do not find the phrase "German philosopher and writer Friedrich Nietzsche" to be problematic, and if they along with their colleagues Michael Tanner and Roger Scruton feel it is helpful to begin material about Nietzsche by introducing him as "German"...well...I think there are very few Wikipeida editors who are qualified to argue. Even if Pedant17 happened to be a Nietzsche scholar, it would seem his resistance of the German label is a minority view.
Definitely a minority view, but nevertheless a valid minority view with some circumstantial support in the literature and some common sense behind it. To that extent we can take it into account and craft our article -- and perhaps even its lead -- accordingly. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
  • To sum up: The literature clearly supports classifying Nietzsche as a "German philosopher." There are also many fine publications that do so in the "lead" text. We could talk about nationality until we are blue in the face. I'm not even sure "German", in this case, is a national label. Rather, it is a classification. And, as the links above clearly show, professional philosophers classify Nietzsche as a German Philosopher. Since we do not do original research here, we should follow suit.Fixer1234 (talk) 06:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
You have put your finger on the ambiguity of "national label" vs "classification". We have more work to do in teasing out and discussing the Germanness of Nietzsche's philosophy: evidently a (sub)topic worthy of consideration (note my reference to Nicholas Martin (ed), Nietzsche and the German Tradition (Oxford; Peter Lang, 2003) above. In the meantime, as our article discusses Nietzsche the man as well as Nietzsche the philosopher and Nietzsche the philologist, we can avoid the pitfalls of the simplistic "German philosopher" label in our lead. Piling up citations cannot resolve the underlying logical issues involved when we span "professional" disciplines. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Sites that Call Nietzsche a German

Since there is some dispute over how WP:MOSBIO is to be interpreted in Nietzsche's case, here are how some of the other Wikipedia sites characterize him. (No, I don't speak all these languages: I could just parse whether they called Nietzsche a German philosopher or not, frequently by clicking on a link and finding a map of Germany on the resulting page). Afrikaans: was 'n Duitse filosoof en filoloog. Alemannic German: ischen dütsche Filosof u klassische Filolog gsi. Azerbaijani: alman filosofu və klassik filoloq. Breton: Ur prederour alaman eo. Bosnian bio je njemački filozof, filolog i psiholog. Catalan: filòsof alemany. Czech: byl německý filozof a klasický filolog. Welsh: Athronydd ac ieithegwr o Almaenwr. Danish: tysk filosof. German: war ein deutscher Philosoph, Dichter und klassischer Philologe. Greek: ήταν σημαντικός Γερμανός φιλόσοφος και φιλόλογος. Spanish: filólogo clásico, filósofo y poeta alemán. West Frisian: is in ferneamd Dútsk filosoof en filolooch. Irish: Fealsamh Gearmánach. Galician: foi un influente filósofo alemán. Hebrew: פילוסוף גרמני. Italian: è stato un filosofo e scrittore tedesco. Latvian: bija vācu filozofs, filologs un psihologs. Lithuanian: vokiečių filosofas. Dutch: Duitse filosoof en filoloog. Norwegian: var en tysk filosof. Polish: filozof, filolog klasyczny i pisarz tworzący w języku niemieckim. Portuguese: foi um influente filósofo alemão. Romanian: filozofi germani. Swedish: var en tysk filosof, författare och klassisk filolog. Turkish: Alman filozof.

To be fair, the French call him a Prussian.[2] The Latin site does not mention his place of birth or nationality.[3] The scales seem tipped, however. RJC Talk Contribs 16:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I applaud the French Wikipedia and the Latin Wikipedia -- they show us different potential ways out of our impasse. Add to them the Polish Wikipedia: its phrase "filozof, filolog klasyczny i pisarz tworzący w języku niemieckim" translates as something like "a philosopher, classical philologist and writer using/writing/creating in the German language". And then we have the Piedmontese Wikipedia which states: "A l'é stàit un dij pi important filòsof del sècol ch'a fa XIX" (... one of the most important philosophers of the 19th century...) with no hint of nationality. -- But of course, these merely furnish indicative examples: references to Wikipedia[s] do not count as definitive per the WP:SPS section of WP:VERIFY. Popularity-contests based on assertions or on quotations potentially out of context play a much lesser role in contructing Wikipedia than do reasoned arguments. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An Attempt to Resolve the "Nationality"\"German Philosopher" Issue

I would like to see this issue resolved. This is my attempt to summarize the situation and propose a solution. Please do not intersperse text with these 7 points. Rather, I request that you comment following the final point.Fixer1234 (talk) 06:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

  • 1. Pedant17 is correct to suggest that Nietzsche's nationality, Nietzsche's “Germanness” (Pedant17's word, I think), and the “Germanness” of his philosophy are interesting and appropriate subjects for discussion. These are just a handful of issues that must be addressed for a full understanding of Nietzsche's work. Pedant17 has pointed to the essay collection Nietzsche and the German Tradition as an example of professional philosophical literature that discusses these issues.
  • 2. Given Wikipedia's policy on original research, however, any (as Pedant17 says) “teasing out and discussing” of such topics in this article must be limited to describing what qualified commentators have said in published works.
  • 4.Those of us in favor of using the German label have pointed to numerous published works by respected Nietzsche scholars that use the label. We have also demonstrated that respected Nietzsche scholars introduce Nietzsche as a “German philosopher” in the lead of their articles and books. We have demonstrated clearly the "German" label is not only appropriate, but standard and supported by professional philosophical literature.
  • 5. Yet, Pedant17 argues “Wikipedia can do better." Pedant says “Piling up citations cannot resolve the underlying logical issues involved when we span 'professional' disciplines.” If I understand him/her correctly, Pedant feels that there are still too many “underlying logical issues”, ambiguities related to the word German, and questions about Nietzsche's “Germanness” for the label to be appropriate. We have provided our sources. If Pedant17 wants to see the German label removed, let him/her provide numerous published sources by professional philosophers that argue the same same point. Here's the challenge, Pedant17--show us a published journal article, a masters thesis, a PhD disertaion, or book that aruges that the “German” label is so problematic it should not be applied to Nietzsche.
  • 6. If Pendant17 cannot provide references for his/her argument, then his/her point amounts to original research. We do not do original research on Wikipedia.
  • 7. Therefore: If Pedant17 cannot cite numerous examples of professional philosophers supporting his/her argument, given the fact that we in favor of the German label have provided numerous examples of the label being used by prominent scholars in prominent works, including in the "lead" of articles and full books, the German label should stay and stay in the lead. If, however, Pedant can produce said examples I propose we remove the German label from the lead and use the article on Nietzsche from the Shorter Routledge as a model for how to use the term "German".
In response to:

I would like to see this issue resolved. This is my attempt to summarize the situation and propose a solution. Please do not intersperse text with these 7 points. Rather, I request that you comment following the final point.Fixer1234 (talk) 06:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The proposed "solution" operates at cross-purposes with my contentions and fails to address the problems related to saddling Nietzsche with a nationalistic label. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In response to:
  • 3. Pedant17 has referred to the phrase \u201cGerman philosopher\u201d as an \u201cambiguous commonplace\u201d, \u201csimplistic\u201d, and as \u201cwidespread habit\u201d.
Unless we know the referent of "German" in the various uses of the phrase 'German hilosopher" it remains very unhelpful. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In response to:

Pedant17 has continued to do so as I have linked to examples of the label \u201cGerman Philosopher\u201d being used by respected professional philosophers.

The multiple examples demonstrate, if anything, the emptiness of the phrase. Unless individual authors -- whether "respected phiosophers" or not -- explain specifically what they mean by "German" or provide a clear context, we don't know what they mean by it -- if anything. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In response to:
Wikipedia has a specific guideline which applies to mentioning nationality (as opposed to ethnicity) in its article-leads. Does this sort of restriction apply to the other works referenced? Without parallel cases, the numerous citations seem of very marginal relevance. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In response to:
  • Such examples certainly suggest that proffesionals in the field feel the label has sufficient \u201cweight and accuracy\u201d.
What field? Biography? History? Philology? Philosophy? -- all of these have relevance for an article on Nietzsche. In which cases (if any) does the use of "German" apply with the rigor of the Wikipedia lead-guidelines? If we don't even know what the authors mean by their terminology, how can we assert that the phrase has sufficient "weight and accuracy" for anything other than the most general discussion of how scholars classify Nietzsche? -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In response to:
  • 4.Those of us in favor of using the German label have pointed to numerous published works by respected Nietzsche scholars that use the label. We have also demonstrated that respected Nietzsche scholars introduce Nietzsche as a \u201cGerman philosopher\u201d in the lead of their articles and books. We have demonstrated clearly the "German" label is not only appropriate, but standard and supported by professional philosophical literature.
The favored traditional "label" has all the disadvantages and few of the advantages of a mere label: it may serve as an unthinking fossilized turn of speech which brushes aside the questions of Nietzsche's citizenship and of his philosophical school(s). At the very least it needs discussion; optimally we can avoid its pitfalls altogether. It remains questionable and inappropriate without further elucidation. Whatever its use in the "professional philosophical literature", it requires unpacking and questioning. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In response to:
  • 5. Yet, Pedant17 argues \u201cWikipedia can do better." Pedant says \u201cPiling up citations cannot resolve the underlying logical issues involved when we span 'professional' disciplines.\u201d If I understand him/her correctly, Pedant feels that there are still too many \u201cunderlying logical issues\u201d, ambiguities related to the word German, and questions about Nietzsche's \u201cGermanness\u201d for the label to be appropriate. We have provided our sources. If Pedant17 wants to see the German label removed, let him/her provide numerous published sources by professional philosophers that argue the same same point. Here's the challenge, Pedant17--show us a published journal article, a masters thesis, a PhD disertaion, or book that aruges that the \u201cGerman\u201d label is so problematic it should not be applied to Nietzsche.
The cited publications themselves do not explain what they mean: does "German philosopher" mean "a citizen of Germany who does philosophy" or "a cultural German who does philosophy" or "a member of some recognized trend which we might call 'German philosophy'" ? The interpretive dilemma seems obvious, and no inherently correct right answer exists. We need no external "evidence" confined to the precise demand of "so problematic it should not be applied to Nietzsche". If we take the issues into account we can of course -- in the context of our article -- discuss Nietzsche as a "German philosopher". But we have not yet done so systematically; and seem unlikely to do so within the limitations of a lead sentence/paragraph. -- Two out of the three interpretations that I have suggested do not apply or apply only questionably and marginally to Nietzsche. Let's try at least to avoid fostering unfacts within Wikipedia. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In response to:
  • 6. If Pendant17 cannot provide references for his/her argument, then his/her point amounts to original research. We do not do original research on Wikipedia.
The inherently unsatisfying proofs by absence appear (as pointed out previously on 2007-08-25) in the lack of nationality-obsession in the articles on Nietzsche in the Shorter Routledge and in the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. See: Edward Craid (editor): The Shorter Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. Abingdon: Routledge, 2005, pages 726-741; and Simon Blackburn: The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 252-253. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In response to:
  • 7. Therefore: If Pedant17 cannot cite numerous examples of professional philosophers supporting his/her argument, given the fact that we in favor of the German label have provided numerous examples of the label being used by prominent scholars in prominent works, including in the "lead" of articles and full books, the German label should stay and stay in the lead. If, however, Pedant can produce said examples I propose we remove the German label from the lead and use the article on Nietzsche from the Shorter Routledge as a model for how to use the term "German".
With all due respect to "professional philosophers", I wonder how many people the compilers of the millions of data-items in the regularly occurring multi-ethnic Prussian censuses from 1816 onwards (http://www.retrobibliothek.de/retrobib/seite.html?id=116366) classified as "German". Until we can ascertain what each philosopher and each historian means by the label "German" we cannot necessarily call upon them as evidence in assigning Nietzsche a nominal nationality in our Wikipedia-lead. We do not need to use the term "German" at all in our opening sentence. But if we do, let's use it in a clear and accurate manner. -- Pedant17 (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Possible solution

Pedant17 has been quite accommodating in presenting his rebuttals to any position other than his own. Months of silence regarding his points, in addition to an RfC, have not persuaded him that his is not the consensus position: he continues to argue that his position is in fact the correct one. I hope that the acrimony of this debate has not driven other editors away, for I hope that we are faced with a question that they can resolve.

For more than a year and a half now, Pedant17 has edited this page to remove statements to the effect of "Nietzsche was a German," denying that this constitutes a campaign to deny Nietzsche's being a German. In the past, this question has involved other editors. I wonder, is there any continued support for Pedant17's position, beyond Pedant17? If there is, this is a discussion we should have. If there is, and those agreeing with Pedant17 are turned off by the tone of the discussions that have taken place on this page and in edit summaries for months beyond many's memory, please speak up. As things stand, this appears to be the position of a lone editor.

It is possible that only Pedant17 shares the view which would justify his revisions to the lede of the article, even as others have agreed that the lede as it stands includes an unavoidable simplification. If this is in fact only a single editor denying a consensus that has been established at least a year and a half ago (and since then), there is no need to answer that editor's objections, unless he raises something that we have not considered, and consider worthy of consideration.

Pedant17 has on several occasions declared his willingness and eagerness for a debate on this subject. But we are not a debating club. My possible solution, indicated by the heading of this comment, is that we ignore Pedant17's comments until support for his position is demonstrated. One editor cannot demand that the community engage him in debate until he himself is satisfied with their decision, pursing his agenda every month until a sufficient number of editors cease from objecting to his campaign such that he can declare consensual victory. RJC Talk Contribs 05:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Nietzsche was, for all intents and purposes, German. The fact that he distanced himself from the Zeitgeist of German culture at the time and preferred to think of himself as a "Good European" is important, illuminating, and deserves to be discussed within the article. Such polemics, however, can no more change the basic fact of his national origin than my critiques of certain US policies can make me Canadian. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
The repeated assertion that 'Nietzsche was, for all intents and purposes, German' does not advance the debate or address the issues. Though many consider him "German", the facts remain: Nietzsche held Prussian citizenship by birth (not German). Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship and became a stateless person . Nietzsche remained a stateless person throughout the reat of his life, and especially and notably throughout all the period of his important and productive writing. Nietzsche spent the vast majority of his productive period living outside the new-fangled German Empire. Nietzsche worked in the traditions of German philosophy, but equally (if not more so) within the parameters of Danish and Classical Greek traditions. Nietzsche regarded himself, at least to some extent, as ethnically Polish. Nietzsche never held citizenship of the German Empire.
"[C]ritiques of certain ... policies " of the land of one's citizenship do not normally or necessarily make one a non-citizen. Official renunciation of one's citizenship in documentary proceeses may. The examples of Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright (to name but two) demonstrate the way in which we treat of persons who make their significant careers elsewhere than in the land of their birth or of their initial citizenship. Asserting that "Nietzsche was German" resembles trying to label Madeleine Albright as Czech (rather than Czecho-Slovak or Czechoslovakian or Bohemian-Moravian) merely because the place of her origin later changed its state-affiliation and its boundaries and its name a few times.
-- Pedant17 (talk) 03:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
To begin, I have only stated that "Nietzsche was, for all intents and purposes, German" once. It is disingenuous to call it a "repeated assertion." Moreover, it is not an uncommon practice to open with one's position and elaborate further on, allowing readers to understand immediately where one is coming from. Moving on...
You are focusing quite a bit on the fact that Nietzsche was born Prussian and never held citizenship of the later-created German Empire. But you are ignoring several pertinent facts about Prussia itself: (1) Prior to the unification of Germany, Prussia was recognized as one of the German principalities. Indeed, it has its humble origins in the German state of Brandenburg and once had Berlin as its capital. (2) Prussia was always considered the major state of "northern Germany" when "German" was primarily a regional descriptor (rather than primarily a state descriptor, though even still the term "Germanic" betrays its regional colorings). (3) Prussians saw no problem in thinking of themselves as German when they formed and largely controlled the North German Confederation. (4) The unification of Germany was undertaken by Prussia (under Otto von Bismarck), and it was Prussia that created the German Empire.
As such, I also find your attempted analogy with Madeleine Albright to be flawed. This is not merely a case of one's place of birth falling under someone else's control or changing state-affiliation. Prussia was the progenitor of modern Germany. And it created by addition, not division. Moreover, I have already stated that the finer points of Nietzsche's thoughts on nationality deserve to be mentioned within the article, as they are. The subject even has its own heading (which it absolutely deserves).
Finally, Nietzsche's polemics against the Germany and Germans are part of his "complex relationship" with his nationality. As such, my point about critiquing one's own country seems relevant insofar as one might be tempted to use his polemics as "evidence" against calling Nietzsche "German." Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 14:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The "repeated assertion" of Nietzsche's Germanness

We find the sentiment repeatedly on this talk-page:

  • "...Nietzsche was a German by every measure by which we call other people Germans at the same time." (2007-07-31)
  • "... nothing could be more clear than that Nietzsche is a German philosopher, that he should be described as such ... " (2007-08-23)
  • "Nietzsche was, for all intents and purposes, German." (2008-03-18)

And in the edit summaries:

  • "Nietzsche was a German philosopher, just like Kant, Hegel, etc." (2007-07-31)

Not to mention the numerous quotations from books briefly setting a context: "N. was a German philosopher" -- before going on to talk about his childhood or his ideas...

Assertions without supporting material remain unsupported assertions. I have no objections to stating a position, but one needs to support it. "Where one is coming from" seems completely irrelevant to discussion of the intrinsic merits of a case. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

We find the sentiment repeatedly on this talk-page
Yes, but you were talking to me, and I'd only said it once. The fact of my opinion is not in any way diminished by it being a shared opinion.
Context! I responded to the latest in a series of similar opinions. -- Pedant17 (talk) 03:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
"Where one is coming from" seems completely irrelevant to discussion of the intrinsic merits of a case.
Apart from being foolishly hostile, the above comment entirely ignores the context of my response. It's just good form to say "here's my opinion, and here's why." Yes, I opened with my opinion—that's not a crime. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 14:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Let me repeat: "Where one is coming from" seems completely irrelevant to discussion of the intrinsic merits of a case. Opinions (as such) of Wikipedians count for nothing: they must find support in facts and in valid logic. Putting one's opinion up front may work well in verbal rhetorical situations, but here in written form it runs the risk (as here) of overstating the case ("all intents and purposes") and getting readily rubbished in consequence. Fellow-Wikipedians have no interest in where people "are coming from" -- they have interests only in enhancing articles. If adequate arguments support an opinion, well and good. If they don't, we've wasted bandwidth. -- Pedant17 (talk) 03:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citizenship, Prussia, and Germany

The focus on Nietzsche's citizenship comes about from the Wikipedia guideline in the Wikipedia Manual of Style for biographies, which as of 2008-04-07 states: "The opening paragraph should give: ... 3. Nationality ... In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable." By the time Nietzsche had become notable he had renounced the only citizenship he had ever held (Prussian) and become stateless.

As to the "pertinent facts about Prussia":

1. The assertion that "Prior to the unification of Germany, Prussia was recognized as one of the German principalities" tendentiously stresses the German nature of Prussia with unverifiable weasel words ("was recognized" -- recognized by whom?). If one thinks in pan-German terms, of course Prussia seems like a German principality. But one can also recall that the original Prussia lay well outside the German area; that one can think of Prussia as a North European or Baltic state; and that Prussia for many years before 1871 counted as a Great Power in its own right -- regardless of one's attitutde to the archaic or future notion of a "Germany". In summary: "Prussian" can mean "German" -- but not necessarily so. We can more accurately treat the young Nietzsche as Prussian rather than German (and the mature Nietzsche as stateless rather than German).

The fact that Prussia had "its humble origins in the German state of Brandenburg and once had Berlin as its capital", though true, does not seem of great relevance. Russia once had relatively humble origins in the Kiev region and once had Kiew as its capital. So what? Does that mean that we should regard Muscovy as Ukrainian? -- The Prussian state had Berlin as its capital continuously from the invention of Brandenburg-Prussia to the disappearence of the Prussian state in the 1940s -- with the exception of a period of Napoleonic occupation when the Prussian capital shifted to Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad in Russia). Does that mean that we class Prussia as a Soviet or Russian state in Nietzsche's day? -- I suspect not.

2. The claim that "Prussia was always considered the major state of "northern Germany" when "German" was primarily a regional descriptor (rather than primarily a state descriptor...)" appears a little too sweeping. Brandenburg hardly figured in the German lands until well into the Middle Ages, and Prussia proper lay outside the Holy Roman Empire and under Polish-Lithuanian suzerainity until even more recently. At various times one could regard Saxony or the Netherlands or even Sweden as the major state of the Northern German lands. Once again, if one starts thinking in terms of "Germany" or "Northern Germany" one imposes a modern concept on an earlier reality. -- Nor can we treat "Germanic" as a useful "regional" term. The Vandal kingdom in North Africa counts as Germanic. The Goths in the Crimea count as Germanic. Let's not muddy the waters by expanding Nietzsche's associations unjustifiably.

3. The suggestion that "Prussians saw no problem in thinking of themselves as German when they formed and largely controlled the North German Confederation" needs qualification. Prussia happily co-opted German nationalism to its own imperial policy. Did that make the Prussians less Prussian and more German? It seems debatable. -- By the same token, we could say that citizens of the United States had no trouble in thinking of themselves as Natonians when they formed and largely controlled the North Atlantic Treaty Organization... or as Naftans once they formed and dominated NAFTA.

4. The claim that "[t]he unification of Germany was undertaken by Prussia (under Otto von Bismarck), and it was Prussia that created the German Empire" seems unexceptionable. But one becomes wary of claims of historical creationism. Look a little more closely at the so-called "German Empire" in 1871 -- in theory as in reality a federation or confederation of independent states with their own governments, parliaments, courts and diplomats -- even citizenships. The Bavarian army retained a separate identity into the First Wold War. And Prussia itself remained a separate, self-governing entity -- dominating but not entirely integrated into the Second German Empire -- throughout the life of that concept. And today, we still occasionally speak of France or of Italy, even though they have become part of something called the European Union. -- If we want to speak of Nietzsche's birth-citizenship, "Prussian" conveys much more detail and accuracy than "German".

[edit] The Madeleine Albright analogy

Perhaps I should spell this out.

Prussia did indeed act as the 'progenitor' of modern Germany. But it assembled the various states into the Second Reich by treaty of alliance, not by addition to its territory. The result did not bear the name of "Greater Prussia" or "New Prussia", and Prussia itself continued to exist and function -- largely unchanged. So much for historical details of 1871, though: Madeleine Albright appears in Wikipedia without a blatant nationality/citizenship tag in the lead of her article (compare the emigre philosophers Karl Marx and George Santayana), which article goes on to detail that she became a US-citizen in 1957 (about the age of 20). The parallel with Nietzsche seems apparent: he became a stateless person at the age of 24. Bickering as to whether to call him (initially, at least) Prussian or German has as little relevance to his career as a stateless person as arguing as to whether to characterize Albight's tenure as US Secretary of State as Czech or as Czecho-Slovak in nature. The details of the subsequent careers of their birthplaces, in each case, have little to no bearing on the matter. The distinction between change by addition and change by division seems quite irrelevant to me. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On critiquing "one's own country"

Nietzsche, in critiquing things German, did not attack his own country: he had no country in any legal sense. The Prussian Saxony of his youth and Professor Nietzsche himself had gone separate ways. The good professor had enough friends and family and cultural background to know the new Germany -- and enough detachment and separation to criticize it. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Debates on nationality and citizenship

The implication of the suggestion that "months of silence" regarding my points constitute a consensus position opposed to my own contradicts the established procedure -- both inside and outside Wikipedia -- whereby "silence denotes assent".

The implication that I have pushed a single position does not correspond to my varied attempts to suggest acceptable alternative lead-sentences and paragraphs. The suggestion that an RfC demonstrates some consensus opposed to my edits appears at odds with the content and progress of that RfC.

The statement that I have 'edited this page to remove statements to the effect of "Nietzsche was a German"' misrepresents my frequently-stated view: that we can (and should) include in the article an account of Nietzsche's "German" background (but that labeling Nietzsche "a German philosopher" appears to lack the significance that highlighting it in the lead accords it).

The repeated labeling of my edits and discussions as a "campaign" detracts from the desirability of addressing the issues seriously and fully.

The claim that a consensus exists to highlight Nietzsche's Germanness in the lead of our article contradicts the lack of discussion on the Talk-page (the place for establishing consensus).

The idea that a silent cabal can establish consensus without dealing with opposing points or by implicitly dismissing such points as not "worthy of consideration" contradicts the collaborative nature of Wikipedia.

The claim that "we are not a debating club" might suggest a reluctance to address points of discussion and provided evidence, which would also abandon the spirit of Wikipedia for some sort of stultifying appeal to authority.

The reluctance to enter into debate about the issues might suggest a lack of evidence or of readiness to consider the facts..

The proposal to ignore the comments of a fellow-Wikipedian "until support ... is demonstrated" pre-judges a potential debate and flies in the face of the aim of achieving consensus by open discussion on the merits of an argument.

-- Pedant17 (talk) 03:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding solely the "months of silence" remark: I believe the point was that people voiced their disagreement, you continued to rehearse your argument, and everyone ignored you believing the situation had already been addressed. In such a case, silence seems to denote not assent but rather confidence in one's original response. I certainly would not want to be taken as having changed my position without expressly stating as much. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 14:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
People put forward their views, and I perceived that my own view seemed in a minority. So I elaborated and re-stated my view, meeting with very little reasoned opposition, only an unexplained tendency on the part of a couple of fellow-editors to revert my various attempts to find an acceptable form of words. People may very well have felt secure in their original responses, but a silence on the talk-page on such grounds remains indistingushable from the silence that suggests agreement or even disinterest. As the Wikipedia consensus policy puts it: "In essence, silence implies consent if there is adequate exposure to the community." So the chances of others assuming a change of "position without [one] expressly stating as much" seem quite high. -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A practical model for nationality-labeling of philosophers

Browsing in Blackburn, Simon [1994]. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-211694-0.  furnishes some instructive examples of labeling. Blackburn does not always shy away from the politically correct: Berkeley and Burke appear as "Irish", Wittgenstein as "Austrian" and Adam Smith as "Scottish".

Others where formal citizenship appears irrelevant include Socrates and John Wyclif. Many British-nationals appear as "English" (Russell, Ayer), but compare Bradley and Isiah Berlin. The Sorbian/Wendish/Lusatian origins of Leibniz do not get a mention.

Citizenship-nationality does not always come to the fore: Buber appears as "Jewish", Augustine of Hippo as "Christian", Avicenna as "Islamic", Freud as "Viennese" and Samuel Johnson as "American".

Philosophers who straddle various national labels don't necessarily miss out.: Rousseau gets the note "Born in Geneva", and Marcuse "born in Berlin". But Lenin appears as neither "Russian" nor "Soviet". Habermas and Arendt avoid the "German" label; Santayana appears neither as Spanish nor American. Benjamin Franklin remains nationalistically unclassified.

But most significantly, Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx, the 19th-century stateless philosophers from Prussian territory, lack any nationalistic label.

Evidently, Blackburn does not have a strict policy or a definitive in-house guideline as to dealing with citizenship/nationality/ethnicity. But his practical approach provides us with significant clues as to how we can best characterize cases such as those of the stateless ex-Prussians Nietzsche and Marx.

-- Pedant17 (talk) 03:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "German philologist"

The current version of the lead highlights the problem of using ambiguous set formulae. It reads "... Nietzsche ...was a nineteenth-century German philologist and philosopher." The implication that Nietzsche worked in the field of German philology misleads: he specialized in classical philology. The implication (per the Wikipedia Manual of Style for biographies) that Nietzsche carried out his significant work as a German citizen misleads even more: he gave up his citizenship (of Prussia -- not of Germany) in 1869: before he achieved notability in the 1870s and 1880s. We've not yet seen compelling evidence situating Nietzsche's philosophy firmly within any ongoing German-cultural strand of philosophical thought: the man appears sui generis. Accordingly I propose dropping the adjective "German" from the lead-sentence, thus removing much of the misleading ambiguity and allowing us to move on to concentrate on more substantive matters -- Pedant17 (talk) 03:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

We could have moved on to substantive matters a long time ago if you weren't so insistent upon this matter. Regardless, what do have to say about Nietzsche's references, even in his late work, to we Germans? Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 02:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
About as much as his declaring himself Polish. Taking Nietzsche out of context and literally has gotten quite a number of interpreters in trouble before, as I am sure you will appreciate. Skomorokh 02:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Good point, but I'm not entirely convinced. Insofar as he thought of himself as Polish, Nietzsche thought he was saying something true. Pedant17's points have been about Nietzsche's self-conception, and it seems to me that he thought of himself as being German in at least some sense, even if he rejected certain modern interpretations of Germanness in favor of his conception of the "Good European." I agree that this is a very complex issue, and I am certainly in favor of the section we have discussing it. Pedant17's efforts to remove "German" and replace it with "Prussian-born" strike me as no improvement, however. I could perhaps support removing a national label altogether, but I don't see why given the widespread consensus among other sources to call Nietzsche a German philosopher. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 03:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I consider Pedant17's version to be an appropriate response to the complexity of the issue, and I also recognise the consensus among editors and scholars to the contrary. It's unfathomable to me why people are so resistant to the notion that the nationality of an individual is not clear or of essential significance, but this has already been said before. Skomorokh 03:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
1. The concerns Pedant17 and Skomorokh have raised are interesting. Both have admitted, however, that their view is a minority point of view. For me, this issue boils down to sources. While I will grant that Pedant17 has found two sources that do not label Nietzsche as “German”, neither editor has produced any sources that make the argument the German label is too problematic to use. Wikipedia does not publish original research.
Not all editors write to the high standards of Wikipedia. Editors use their own judgment. So can we -- with the help of Wikipedia guidelines and in the light of the evident ambiguities of over-simplification. -- Pedant17 (talk) 03:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
2. There are numerous examples of Nietzsche being called German in biographical notes that also note his Prussian birth or stateless status. (See the Britannica and Stanford Encyclopedia articles, for example.) Nietzsche's inclusion in books like German Philosophy since Kant, The Kantianism of Hegel and Nietzsche: Renovation in 19th-Century German Philosophy, and German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche demonstrate that in profession philosophy Nietzsche is classified as a member of the German Philosophical Tradition---hence, “a German Philosopher.” While there are sources that do not use the German label, they are in the minority. Until this trend changes, the “German philosopher” label should stay.
We have a case for calling Nietzsche a "German philosopher" and placing him loosely within some sort of (vaguely-defined) German philosophical tradition. Can we express that in the lead without causing confusion as to citizenship? -- I suspect not. Should we elaborate on the issues elsewhere? -- Certainly. -- Pedant17 (talk) 03:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
3.Let me note, however, that if someone can find a scholarly source that makes the case that we should not call Nietzsche German, my view my might change. (I have searched numerous journal archives, and I've not yet found an article making this argument.) Fixer1234 (talk) 07:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
No such scholarly source would credibly make such a counterfactual claim; and the expectation (that it would prove the negative) demands the unreasonable. We can call Nietzsche (in certain senses) "German". But to do so in the lead would mislead and over-simplify the the issues, because in other senses we cannot or should not call Nietzsche "German". -- Pedant17 (talk) 03:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Insofar as Nietzsche's self-conception has relevance: of course he thought of himself as German in some sense -- and accurately so. But in other respects, as explained repeatedly, we cannot dismiss him as German tout court -- especially not in the lead paragraph. -- I by no means insist on inserting "Prussian-born" in the lead, and have offered proposed versions without using such phrasing. The problem of vagueness and misleadingness attaches to any simplistic labeling as "German philosopher" or as "a German philosopher". -- Pedant17 (talk) 03:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
The phrase "We Germans" in Nietzsche's writing may refer, depending on context, to "the cultural/linguistic German-speaking community" or to "the German race/ethnicity". It cannot refer to "we fellow-holders of German citizenship". And the issue of German citizenship relates to the current debate as to the content of our article-lead, as per the recommendations of WP:MOSBIO. -- Pedant17 (talk) 03:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nietzsche-Archiv

Hello everybody, I have requested a translation of the German article about the Nietzsche-Archiv. See Wikipedia:Translation/Nietzsche-Archiv. Help would be greatly appreciated.--Chef aka Pangloss 18:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Questionable source

"This fact is supported by the number of highly attractive women who read this collection of his writings while drinking gourmet coffee in Barnes and Nobles book stores located around the United States."

This might be original research. I don't want to change it as yet because I don't know if there has already been debate, but I wanted to highlight it for regular editors of this page.--Tom Joudrey 00:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I just decided to be bold and remove it, as well as the statement it claims to support concerning what is usually known by college professors who teach Nietzsche. I don't think anyone will object. RJC Talk 01:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Ha ha, this sounds funny. I wonder what the sentence before it was. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.68.115.175 (talk) 19:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nietzsche's Burial Place

This one might be a little easier. Where is Nietzshe buried? Perhaps this information could be included in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.168.254.30 (talk) 10:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It is in the article and has been for quite a while, and not too hard to find, or is it?--Chef aka Pangloss 03:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Left-wing Corruption of Nietzsche

The corruption of Nietzsche's philosophy in the Wikipedia articles by radical-left activists is insane. What better way to neutralize one's enemy than to appropriate, weaken, soften and distort him? The German Rudiger Safranski, at least, has the balls to speak the truth in a world gone mad with doctrinaire socialistic political correctness:

"According to Nietzsche, nature produces the weak and the strong, the advantaged and disadvantaged. There is no benevolent providence and no equitable distribution of chances to get ahead in life. Before this backdrop, morality can be defined as an attempt to even out the 'injustice' of nature and create counterbalances. The power of natural destinies needs to be broken. In Nietzsche's view, Christianity represented an absolutely brilliant attempt to accomplish this aim ... Nietzsche greatly admired the power of Christianity to set values, but he was not grateful to it, because its consideration for the weak and the morality of evening things out impeded the progress and development of a higher stage of mankind.

Nietzsche could envision this higher stage of mankind only as a culmination of culture in its 'peaks of rapture,' which is to say in successful individuals and achievements. The will to power unleashes the dynamics of culmination, but it is also the will to power that forms a moral alliance on the side of the weak. This alliance works at cross-purposes with the goal of culmination and ultimately, in Nietzsche's view, leads to widespread equalization and degeneration. As a modern version of the 'Christian theory of morality,' this alliance forms the backbone of democracy and socialism. Nietzsche adamantly opposed all such movements. For him, the meaning of world history was not happiness and prosperity of the greatest possible number but individual manifestations of success in life. The culture of political and social democracy was a concern of the 'last people,' whom he disparaged. He threw overboard the state-sponsored ethics of the common welfare because he regarded such ethics as an impediment to the self-configuration of great individuals. If, however, the great personalities were to vanish, the only remaining significance of history would be lost in the process. By defending the residual significance of history, Nietzsche assailed democracy and declared what mattered was 'delaying the complete appeasement of the democratic herd-animal'(11,587; WP 125) ... Nietzsche opted against democratic life organized according to the principle of welfare. For him, a world of that sort would signal the triumph of the human herd animal...

If we are content to regard this highly personal philosophy and these maneuvers of self-configuration with fascination and perhaps even admiration, but are not willing to abandon the idea of democracy and justice, it is likely that Nietzsche would have accused us of feeble compromise, indecisiveness, and epitomizing the ominous 'blinking' of the 'last men.'" Safranski, Rudiger (trans. Shelley Frisch), Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, Norton, 2002, pp. 296-298. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.10.2 (talk) 13:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The quote sounds right. What's the "corruption" you're talking about? I suspect it might be nicer to attribute nicer motives to whoever is claiming something different. I'm sure there are some places in Nietzsche's writing which might push in a democratic or egalitarian direction. But among Nietzsche scholars, it's certainly much more common to emphasize Nietzsche's elitism and anti-democractic sentiments.
There is certainly the possibility of a subtler, less right-wing interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy, where he speaks against authority and of morality as an outlet of the will to power, etc. This is by no means "corruption" of his philosophy. See for instance HH 43, where he criticises cruel people, 463 and 473 where he criticises totalitarianism and the "prostation of all citizens before the absolute state" (a viewpoint that the right commonly accept him as PROMOTING rather than criticising). Of course one must also recognise that these seem to be contradictory to other views he expresses, and that a more complex intepretation of concepts such as the will to power is required to make more sense of this strain of thought in his writing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.219.116.67 (talk) 12:29, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nietzsche's Illness

Has anyone with a medial background addressed or speculated on his original illness? From the section titled "Professor of Basel" the following quote from that section "moments of shortsightedness practically to the degree of blindness, migraine headaches, and violent stomach attacks." Not much to make a diagnosis from, but I'd be interested in any thoughts on what this might be, besides syphilis that is. 76.170.27.6 14:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

"Medial background"? Probably. "Medical background"? Certainly. Would you mind having a look for yourself, 6 or 7 sections above?--Chef aka Pangloss 22:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Then there's always the possibility that he was a malingerer. His illnesses were always of the type that showed no external signs. He wanted to get out of his position as professor of philology. He tried to wreck his own philology career by writing the idiosyncratic The Birth of Tragedy. After failing to switch careers in order to become a philosophy or biology professor, he might have succeeded in leaving philology by gaining a medical disability pension. The thought of being a philosopher with unlimited leisure, like Schopenhauer, appealed to him greatly because he desperately wanted every minute of his life to be his own. Faking illness is a common way to extricate oneself from a situation that is difficult to leave. There is always a possibility of trickery when the symptoms of an illness are subjective, internal, and not verifiable by objective observation. Lestrade (talk) 17:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Wikipedia is not interested in your original theories. Please stick to referenced material. - 66.93.200.101 (talk) 03:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tschandala

I tried to improve this article, but I am afraid my English is again far from supreme. Could somebody check for errors and style? Thank you.--Chef aka Pangloss 14:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject Lutheranism

This article should not recieve a Wikiproject Lutheranism banner (based on the project's own rules) because the subject is not a Lutheran nor has made a significant contribution to Lutheranism. If there are questions, please see the project's talk page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackturner3 (talk • contribs) 21:13, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sections Needed on anti-democratic stance, purported misogyny, the role of Kaufmann in translating and rehabilitating N...

I skimmed the article. I think it It appears to have been written by an undergraduate who took a few courses in philosophy. It is mediocre at best. It needs to be rewritten, and it needs new sections on N.'s appropriation by the Nazi's, his anti-democratic stance, his purported misogyny, the role of Kaufmann with respect to translation and rehabilitation, and his substantial influence on 20th century writers, intellectuals, philosophers, and cultural critics, among others.


estling_ken@yahoo.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.36.238.145 (talk) 19:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] What is our criteria for an influence of Nietzsche?

I assume this issue has likely come up before; however, given the increased activity in editing both Nietzsche's influences and influenced I think the following question should be raised: What are we considering an influence of Nietzsche? He obviously was extremely well read and comments on a massive amount of people. Is every mere philosopher or thinker whom Nietzsche studied and critized to be considered someone he was influenced by? I think it should also be noted for editors of this main article, the article on Nietzsche's influence and receptions is quite weak. It lacks depth, proper citations, a strong opening paragraph, consistent structure, and many of the factors listed for a "good" article rating under the project philosophy. PhilipDSullivan 01:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of Voltaire

As to the recent deletion of Voltaire from his influences: Nietzsche has obviously read Voltaire taking the fact the he critisizes his work (one instance I am certain of is in the beginning of chapter 2 free spirit in beyond good and evil). Because much of what Nietzsche accomplishes throughout this writting is spring boarded from his critique of previous works it seems possible to view these works that he has read and felt worthy of response to to be considered works, subsequently writers, that influenced him. Obviously if we acknowledge all of these instances of response to a specefic work or writer the list of Nietzsche's influences will be considerably long. So, what is our criteria for an influence of Nietzsche? Should it be anyone he mentions in his writting plus books and articles known to be read, like those mentioned in the numerous biographical accounts and held within the library of his books. PhilipDSullivan 01:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Clean-up

Since I did the most recent clean-up to the influences/influenced sections of the infobox, I'll give my thoughts. I think that they should be trimmed far more than they currently are (I actually think they should be done away with altogether, but I lost that vote). In the course of that discussion and several alternative proposals (see Template talk:Infobox Philosopher), it was suggested that persons named as influences or influenced should be mentioned in the article. If a person did not exert a verifiable influence substantial enough to be mentioned, he shouldn't be listed in the infobox. The same goes for the category of "influenced." Voltaire was taken out simply because he wasn't mentioned in the article. On a related note, I don't think that he should be listed in the article simply to get him into the infobox. Given the current manner of doing things, Plato has to be listed in every philosopher's infobox, which makes his being listed meaningless. And a philosopher of Nietzsche's stature would require listing as "influenced" every subsequent thinker, no matter how mediocre or obscure, again defeating the purpose of naming anyone in particular. The compromise adopted — of listing only persons significant enough to warrant independently substantiated mention in the article — seems best. RJC Talk 05:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, for the link to the template talk. It does not seem like a final compromise was established in the long talk about influences. After considering all the arguements presented, I am personally for listing only those mentioned in the article. PhilipDSullivan 16:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wish or accept?

The section about the Eternal Return reads: "the importance of living life in such a way that one could accept its eternal repetition." Now, didn't Nietzsche say that the right way to live would be to WISH this "eternal repetition", and not only to "accept" it? I am not much of an expert in Nietzsche, so I ask before changing anything. Thanks. LFS 13:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Nobody answers, so I will change it. LFS 00:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nietzsche's Stay in Turin, Italy

Just FYI: I've uploaded two photographs to the Nietzsche Wikimedia Commons [4] (see bottom)-- a photograph of the house he stayed in while in Turin (he wrote Ecce Homo there) across from the piazza where he is said to have had his breakdwon and a dedicatory plaque outside the same place. They're not of very high quality because I did not have my PC to process them adequately and most of all I had no tripod at the time and was running out of batteries (these were taken at night). Still they should be alright cropped if anyone here thinks they would be useful to the article. Also the following links should be of interest: NPR broadcast of "Nietzsche's Love Affair with Turin"[5] and this site (in Italian) which has some quotes of his about the city as well as a photograph which marks the exact location of his room in the building.[6]--DWRZ (talk) 14:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] God

In fact, though Nietzsche thought scientists and secular-minded people of his day had failed to see it, Nietzsche claimed the "death of God" would eventually lead to the loss of any universal perspective on things, and along with it any coherent sense of objective truth.[citation needed] Instead we would retain only our own multiple, diverse, and fluid perspectives — none of which can have a final say on things. This view has acquired the name "perspectivism".

This rant is nonsense and should be deleted. If someone can site where Nietzsche said anything about, "the "death of God" would eventually lead to the loss of any universal perspective on things, and along with it any coherent sense of objective truth..." I will give him/her my cherished Faber edition of "Free Spirits!" --GuamIsGood (talk) 03:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

That paragraph looks like a rather inelegant gloss of Nietzsche's worries about the death of God as presented in The Gay Science. But of course, he was worried about the looming threat of Nihilism. This may come about as a result of the weak losing anything to believe in (since they are not strong enough to create their own values), but it is only universal morality that he specifically mentions as losing foundation in the common mind as far as I can recall. I'll have to look into it more. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 17:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Nietzsche didn't know what nihilist meant and niether did Dostoyevsky. Nihilism? Boo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Commentarian (talk • contribs) 05:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia is not a place for original research, so it doesn't matter what Nietzsche actually thought: verifiability, not truth. There was a similar objection to the Übermensch page late last year, which was resolved when the person pursuing the change could not cite any sources. The ones I put forward were these:
  • Lampert, Nietzsche's Teaching, p. 17: "The God who once lived and provided a sun for this earth is now dead, and now longer supplies a horizon to man's world (GS 125)." And on the next page, Lampert states, "Zarathustra has not yet learned that the death of God must be followed by a long twilight of piety and nihilism (II. 19; III. 8). […] Zarathustra's gift of the superman is given to a mankind not aware of the problem to which the superman is the solution."
  • Ansell-Pearson, Nietzsche contra Rousseau, p. 159: "the overman is a contingent ideal whose willing only makes sense in the context of nihilism and the death of God."
  • Heidegger, "The Word of Nietzsche," in Question Concerning Technology and other essays, trans. William Lovitt, p. 57: "Nietzsche's thinking sees itself as belongin under the heading 'nihilism.'" Heidegger then quotes (p. 60) from Gay Science 343: "The greatest recent event — that 'God is dead,' that the belief in the Christian god has become unbelievable — is already beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe." P. 61: "If God as the suprasensory ground and goal of all reality is dead, if the suprasensory world of the Ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory and above it its vitalizing and upbuilding power, then nothing more remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient himself." Etc.
I'm sure others that dealt with the death of God exclusively could be found, but these should suffice as evidence that Nietzsche scholars do attribute views such as these to Nietzsche. RJC Talk Contribs 14:22, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Commentarian, you are operating under the incorrect assumptions that Nihilism must mean only one thing and that this meaning must be narrowly construed. Nihilism, for Nietzsche, is a philosophy that is even more life-denying than the Pessimism of Schopenhauer (which Nietzsche also rejected). Such views are obviously going to be abhorrent to anyone following the life-affirming path Nietzsche recommends. But while the term is operationalized a bit, it is also well within the boundaries of what one might expect the word "nihilism" to refer to. In short, Nietzsche knew exactly what nihilism meant—both generally and within the context of his philosophy. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 19:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

It’s such a badly written paragraph. The first two clauses could be removed without any substantial loss to the content. If the author had cited the Madman section in The Gay Science, then the smug secularists would have been worth mentioning. The clause in that sentence uses the word ‘universal perspective’, which is very ambiguous and misleading. A universal perspective could mean something like the Kantian phenomenal world or a shared belief, neither of which are necessarily lost with the death of God. And what exactly is a “coherent sense of objective truth”? ‘Faith in objective truth’ would be a simpler and better way of expressing the ramifications of the death of God. Then, an absence of such an obvious citation doesn’t help build any confidence in the article. The next sentence is ambiguous; does he mean that each individual has multiple perspectives or does he mean we live in a world of multiple perspectives? Presumably the latter. It would be closer to the point of the matter to describe what Nietzsche refers to as the madman in section 75 of The Gay Science. The madman lies outside the universal consensus, and does not subscribe to ‘objective truth’ (which Nietzsche calls “irrefutable errors” or universal consensus). He therefore undermines our ability to make judgments about truth, art morality etc. (i.e. – value judgments), as we have no grounds or criteria for making such judgments. In that same section, Nietzsche considers the prospect of the world following the madman as the “greatest danger”, and is in favor of this exception, provided it never becomes the rule. So, the loss of God is not only an existential crisis, but it also undermines truth, morality, and our ability to ascertain the value of things (the advent of a form of nihilism).

Finally, Nietzsche mentions “perspectivism” in The Genealogy of Morals. Perspectivism is thinking about an object or concept from a multiplicity of perspectives, even contradictory perspectives. The advantage of this method is that one can learn more about something than a singular perspective or system. It also ties in nicely with Nietzsche’s thoughts on anti-doctrinal freethinking, which features in HAH and Daybreak. Now in the land of lazy-minded academia, these two distinct thoughts – a dire consequences of a lapse in faith and the method of the freethinking intellectual – have become merged, and it is ‘common knowledge’ that Nietzsche was a champion of diversity and pluralism. It is from this foggy thought that this article, and many like it, has emerged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.153.80.2 (talk) 05:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Academia may be full of foggy thought when it comes to Nietzsche, but it is the primary generator of reliable sources. Could you clarify whether your objections to the section center on its being a bad interpretation of Nietzsche or on its being a bad explication of what interpretors have said about Nietzsche? RJC Talk Contribs 05:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I had problems with the lack of sources and the poor interpretation, not to mention the poor writing. However, someone has edited the section, and it looks much better. There is still the "perspectivism" error - I would like someone to tell me where Nietzsche says the death of God results in a plurality of perspectives known as "perspectivism". The only perspectivism reference I know of is, as metioned above, in The Genealogy of Morals. I haven't read all Nietzsche's works yet, so I'm open to being corrected. 122.153.80.2 (talk) 00:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lead

I think this is one of those articles that should have a long lead section. It's only ten lines, less than one for each screen of text on my monitor. I would like to see a discussion regarding the ratio of text in article to text in lead some time, but I have little doubt that this one should be a bit longer; two paragraphs for Nietzsche is not enough. Richard001 (talk) 10:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

You're probably right; for anyone who's interested, the style guideline on this is at WP:Lead section. RJC Talk Contribs 14:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures of Ecce homo manuscript etc.

Hallo, I have uploaded some scans of the facsimile edition of the Ecce homo manuscript to Wikimedia Commons; you might want to use them in the EH article. There are also some new pictures from the Antichrist manuscript, and you might like to have a look at the articles about AC and EH in the German wikipedia which might get better in the next months.--Chef aka Pangloss (talk) 12:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

(detail of) title page EH

(detail of) first page of the preface EH

last page EH

two surviving title pages of AC

"law against Christianity", debated as part of AC

first note on the "eternal return", August 1881

[edit] Affirmation of life?

Notable ideas Apollonian and Dionysian, death of God, eternal recurrence, herd-instinct, master-slave morality, Übermensch, perspectivism, will to power, ressentiment

WHAT HAPPENED TO 'AFFIRMATION OF LIFE'? IT'S HIS BEST IDEA...(IN MY HUMBLE OPINION)...

Nemo Senki66.213.22.193 (talk) 00:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you're thinking of Albert Schweitzer? Cosmic Latte (talk) 01:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Nevermind, I was thinking "reverence for life," which is indeed Schweitzer. But I don't know if "affirmation of life" appears explicitly in Nietzsche or only in later commentary, such as B. Reginster's The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. Note that will to power is already mentioned in this article. Cosmic Latte (talk) 01:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I found it; it's under 'Nietzschean affirmation'...I think this would be important to this article because of its influence on Camus and Absurdism; I'd like to add it them, if no one minds...Thanks!... Nemo Senki66.213.22.193 (talk) 21:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure, go right ahead! I can't imagine why anyone would object. And if, for some reason, anyone does object later on, they'll still need to appreciate the fact that you decided to be bold in a constructive way. Cosmic Latte (talk) 00:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Slave Morality under Rome

I've emended the article to read "Nietzsche sees slave-morality as an ingenious ploy among the slaves and the weak (such as the Jews and Christians dominated by Rome) to overturn the values of their masters and to gain value for themselves." The parenthesis used to read "(such as the Jewish slaves in Egypt or the Christians dominated by Rome)." I don't think Nietzsche ever talks about slave morality in the context of Moses (he was very keen on the Old Testament): his ascription of "slave morality" to the Jews concerns a later period in antiquity (Babylon and Roman domination). As I recall, all his discussions of the Jews and "slave morality" occur re: the birth of Christianity. Jack (talk) 09:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

In On the Genealogy of Morals, the Jews begin the slave revolt while they still have some political independence, presumably because the redemption from slavery was a central part of their worship. So, I'll restore the original wording. RJC Talk Contribs 14:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I can't find the passage. From what I can see "the Jews" appear in Genealogy of Morals at I.7-8 (re: Jesus), I.16 (re: Tacitus, John the Divine). Nothing in the second essay. From the third essay: "All honor to the Old Testament! I find in it great human beings, a heroic landscape, and something of the very rarest quality in the world, the incomparable naivete of the strong heart; what is more, I find a people." This doesn't sound like a description of "slave morality" to me. The text I changed had to do with the Jews' slavery in Egypt, i.e. the dawn of Jewish history. Where do you get the idea that the invention of "slave morality" dates, according to Nietzsche, to a period of Judaean political independence? Jack (talk) 17:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Part of the last sentence of GM I.7: "with the Jews the slave rebellion in morality begins". The bit about Jesus in I.8 says that he perfected the Judaic inversion in morals, which means that the inversion of which he speaks preceded Jesus and the birth of Christianity. The Jews were not fully enslaved to Rome until the rebellion of 68–70 CE. RJC Talk Contribs 22:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, but they were under the thumb of Roman puppets. Nothing here has anything to do with Egypt, and the article as it stands give the misleading idea that N. felt slavery to be a characteristic of the ancient Jews per se, as opposed to a historical phenomenon. I'm reverting back to my very small change. Jack (talk) 05:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)