Friedrich Nietzsche
1844-1900 · Existentialism · Household name
God is dead, the German philosopher Nietzsche wrote, and the hard part is what fills the hole he leaves. He expected nihilism to follow. He attacked Christian morality as the revenge of the weak dressed up as virtue, and called for values made by the living, since every living thing reaches to extend its own power. His test of a life: could you bear it repeating forever, unchanged?
Signature
The position Nietzsche is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Meaning
- leans Constructed
- Agency
- Other
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Individualism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Universals
- leans Nominalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Changing (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Constructed (15 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (15 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Immanence (8 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Opposition
- leans Sublation (25 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- War
- leans Militarism (81 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Nietzsche refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Other
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Power
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Genealogical / Moral Tragedy
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Eternal Return
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Conceptual Mediation
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Power-Knowledge
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue / Egoism
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Other
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Cyclical Recurrence
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Cyclical Return
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Might Makes Right
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- False Consciousness / Metaphorical
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Revolutionary
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Annihilation / Other
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Evaluative Judgment
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Will-to-Power
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Self
What is your primary bond and loyalty?