The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Prussia in
1844. After the death of his father, a Lutheran minister, Nietzsche
was raised from the age of five by his mother in a household of
women. In 1869 he was appointed Professor of Classical Philology at
the University of Basel, where he taught until 1879 when poor
health forced him to retire. He never recovered from a nervous
breakdown in 1889 and died 11 years later. Known for saying that
“god is dead,” Nietzsche propounded his metaphysical construct of
the superiority of the disciplined individual (superman) living in
the present over traditional values derived from Christianity and
its emphasis on heavenly rewards. His ideas were appropriated by
the Fascists, who turned his theories into social realities that he
had never intended.
Walter Kaufmann was a philosopher and poet, as
well as a renowned translator of Friedrich Nietzsche. His
books include Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist,
Antichrist, From Shakespeare to Existentialism,
and Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre.
He was a Professor of Philosophy at Princeton
University, where he taught after receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard
in 1947 until his death in 1980. He held visiting appointments at
many American and foreign universities, including Columbia,
Cornell, Heidelberg, Jerusalem, and the Australian National
University, and his books have been translated into Dutch, German,
Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.
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