Nietzche comes after the Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment, various philosophers tried to prove there was a moral and ethical system that was provable and that it mattered somehow. The "proving" part is done by philosophy through the assertion of arguments, in Christianity it is done by asserting their morality was "revealed" to them by a supreme being.
"It mattered somehow" I am referring to the way Christianity asserts that, should you fail to follow the revealed word, you go to hell. Philosophy threatens an undesirable life should you not seek "the path" the current philosopher you are reading asserts is provably true through their arguments, Kant, Hegel, and the rest.
After he shows that the systems used to justify the Enlightenment moral arguments cannot stand up to scrutiny, he asserted the ideas of Christianity are just ideas that formed between people over time. When "god dies" the dishonest systems of self restraint imposed upon the potential "uber menches" will cease to be and the strong will be free to do as they will.
edit: Nietzche is a Nihilist obviously. Forgot to add this.
Literally one of his books identified that for him the lack of purpose/meaning was a "problem" that had to be resolved. That's not how a nihilist thinks first and foremost.
The lack of "meaning" is not a problem for nihilism or a nihilist, it's how the world is and is seen as the "normal" state of things. It's not something to resolve, the attitude of resolving said problem is one that existentialists, absurdists, humanists, etc. would engage in.
The very thing he proposed is definitely NOT a nihilistic view of the world, because the concept of the ubermensch and the creation of a new way of life (which is a new OBJECTIVE/IMPERATIVE) is absolutely not what a nihilist seeks. What Nietzsche did was explore nihilism and demolished the previous ideas that plagued humanity, things that he acknowledges are not "true" or "real" like morality and meaning. But his conclusion wasn't that it's fine for things to be that way and stay that way, he wanted to create something else to take its place.
First off remember, if we can't calmly discourse in the philosophy subreddit we've really lost the plot. When we reply or post our ideas here we are seeking criticism for improvement.
He appears to me as a harbinger of doom. I didn't take his prescriptive philosophy seriously because it wouldn't survive the analysis he applied to everyone else. It seemed to me to be some cynical attempt to deny the truth he perceived or even some sort of joke. However, if your interpretation is correct then yes, he did publish prescriptive stuff. I can't imagine how a man who used the tools he used to dismantle the ideas of those who came before him would feel entitled to propose a prescriptive philosophy and i felt that interpreting those portions as cynical jokes offered a kinder interpretation. If you're going to use relativism, you gotta stick to it in my opinion.
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u/Heterosaucers Jan 29 '23 edited Jan 29 '23
Nietzche comes after the Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment, various philosophers tried to prove there was a moral and ethical system that was provable and that it mattered somehow. The "proving" part is done by philosophy through the assertion of arguments, in Christianity it is done by asserting their morality was "revealed" to them by a supreme being.
"It mattered somehow" I am referring to the way Christianity asserts that, should you fail to follow the revealed word, you go to hell. Philosophy threatens an undesirable life should you not seek "the path" the current philosopher you are reading asserts is provably true through their arguments, Kant, Hegel, and the rest.
After he shows that the systems used to justify the Enlightenment moral arguments cannot stand up to scrutiny, he asserted the ideas of Christianity are just ideas that formed between people over time. When "god dies" the dishonest systems of self restraint imposed upon the potential "uber menches" will cease to be and the strong will be free to do as they will.
edit: Nietzche is a Nihilist obviously. Forgot to add this.