Nietzsche's Philosophy: Nihilism, Death of God, and the Übermensch

Nietzsche's Philosophy: Nihilism and the Death of God

Nietzsche's philosophy takes as its starting point the cultural diagnosis of nihilism. This nihilism is understood as the historical event that Nietzsche called the "death of God."

The Platonic-Christian Tradition and Supersensible Reality

From Socrates to Plato, Western tradition has understood true reality – that which gives existence meaning and intelligibility – to lie in a parallel world. In Plato's philosophy, this is the world of Forms. Christianity, which Nietzsche considered an heir of Platonism, further extended this concept. This world of Forms, or the 'beyond' in tradition, acted as the norm and measure of truth and goodness, serving as the source of all that is true and good in the Western world.

The Erosion of Supersensible Order

Nietzsche observed a process of progressive destruction of this supersensible order, which, since Plato, had given meaning to reality. Several factors contributed to this erosion:

• Modern Science: The mechanism of modern science has rendered any concept of God superfluous (unnecessary) for explaining nature, which is now understood as a purely mechanical machine.
• The Enlightenment: The Enlightenment constructed a moral explanation of the world that led to the emergence of man as a subject who gives himself the standard of action, effectively releasing him from the mandate of the Decalogue.

The "Death of God" and Its Consequences

The outcome of this process is what Nietzsche called the "death of God" – the awareness of the inoperability of the concept of God and the inability to continue believing in the ideals inherited from tradition. The collapse of the intelligible world also signifies the disappearance of that which gave meaning and substance to reality.

What has emerged with the "death of God" is a sense of meaninglessness, an awareness that not only God but also:

• Truth
• Morality
• Reason
• The entire system of values and ideals of Western culture

...have proven invalid. This situation is what Nietzsche called nihilism.

Overcoming Nihilism: The Path to the Übermensch

However, this announcement of nihilism also contains the need for its overcoming. With nihilism, according to Nietzsche, a stage in the history of humankind has come to an end. Man is something that must be overcome, for he is nothing but a rope stretched over the abyss that separates the animal from the Übermensch (superman).

The Übermensch is the name given to the starting point of a new humanity – a 'superhumanity' that overcomes the old human who has 'died with God.' This new humanity is formed through the creation of a new system of values, a revaluation of Platonic-Christian ideals, involving the opening of man to life – a life that Nietzsche understood as the rule of the will to power.