Overview

• pre-existentialism; essence-based philosophy
• first modern thinker on human relationships and morals

Critique of Pure Reason

• influenced by British Empiricism who claimed that A POSTERIORI (knowledge from the senses) is the only legitimate form of knowledge
• argued that A PRIORI (knowledge prior to sensation) was legitimate, though not provable
• also argued that God cannot be proved or disproved; must be accepted "on faith"
• critical of the Empiricists' "thinking God into existence"
• heavily influenced also by Newton and his laws of physics - thought that there must be a parallel for what drives humans

Critique of Practical Reason

• focused on rational faculty of human conduct
• ideal of freem of will means WILLING obediance to moral law
• act only on maxims or principles that could be accepted by every person -- UNIVERSALLY

• suggested that religion is a "lived" experience (subjective, unique to each person), not to be directed by dogmas
• tried to move religion out of the domain of knowlege and morals, cannot be confined to any single department of human selfhood, rather underlies the whole of it
• this is a hesitant departure, but departure nonetheless from essence-based philosophy, thus perhaps F.S. the first existentialist philosopher

• religious truth is subjective
• 3 stages of authentic self-hood:
  1. aesthetic
  2. ethical
  3. religious
• full realization of authentic selfhood requires "leap of faith"

• pastor father died when Nietzsche was 6 - event likely shaped his life and how he viewed religion and God (why would God take his father)

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

• God is no longer a concept deserving serious philosophical attention
• suggests that waning Christian morals "killed God"
• clear departure from essence-based philosophy; in existentialist territory
• authentic human experience, ideal, transcendance to Ubermensche (over-man), higher level of morality, "beyond good and evil"

• god speaks through ciphers, displayed in all forms of being: history, art, nature, etc
• felt that people should not try to translate
• said that myths are the means by which people can gain access to ultimate reality

• brilliant existentialist thinker
• was a nazi

• considered 'classic' example of modern existentialist
• asserted that human existence comes before essence (main tenet of existentialism)
• discussions of God not considered useful philosophical exercises
• if we are completely free, then we may be in a valueless universe
• you are responsible; you have the right and duty to choose
• wrote "Nausea"; character discovers that life is meaningless; "hell is other people"

Facticity

• facticity is that about ourselves that we cannot change; like race, gender, nationality, etc
• everything else is a choice