Alexander V. Razin
Again, this as though there is only one APA approved official definition of nihilism. The one true account of what it means for all rational men and women. As though one could take nihilism out of their pocket like a wallet and say, "look, everyone, nihilism".Nietzsche rejected all conventional morality but he wasn’t a nihilist – he called for a “re-evaluation of all values”. Alexander V. Razin describes the gulf separating him from that other great moralist, Immanuel Kant.
Instead, the closest Nietzsche came to being a "great moralist", in my opinion, is the extent to which he embraced the Uberman mentality as something that transcends historical and cultural contexts altogether and truly does reflect the most reasonable and virtuous manner in which to live as a "master" rather than a "slave".
But even here, how far did he himself go in living his own life so as to embody the Uberman much beyond an intellectual contraption in his books? In his head. And for others who sought to do so, you have interpretations that ranged from Rand's Objectivists to Hitler's Nazis.
The bottom line [mine] is that you can re-evaluate values until you are blue in the face "in theory", but in the absence of God, once you bring your theoretical conclusions down out of the philosophical clouds, you are immediately confronted with the "real world". And that has been chewing up and spitting out our "my way or the highway" dogmatic authoritarians now for centuries.
Thus...
A "philosophy of life" predicated on a "critical analysis" of...of what exactly? That's the part where I introduce dasein and suggest we take the masters and the slaves down out of the conjectural clouds and plug them into actual "situations". In other words, what does it mean to be a master and a slave such that the proper distinction is made between "might makes right" and "right makes might"? You're on top given a particular set of circumstances not because you possess the raw power to be, but because you actually deserve to be.Friedrich Nietzsche presented the world with a philosophy of life that called for a rigorous reevaluation of all values. His critical analysis of Western civilization resulted in him drawing a crucial distinction between the ‘slave morality’ of the masses and the ‘master morality’ of those superior individuals who elevate human society through intellectual creativity.
We'll need a context of course.As a result, Nietzsche’s ‘philosophy of overcoming’ emphasizes self-creation and the affirmation of life. Looking ever to the future, he envisioned the coming of a ‘noble man’ who would assert his own will and create his own values without being limited by the false and outmoded values of the mediocre masses.