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Definition of Spiritual Freedom & Nietzsche

The initial definition of spiritual freedom expressed by Nietzsche in sections 225 through 227 from Human, All Too Human is that spiritual freedom is comprised of thinking differently than one is expected to do according to the dominant, conventional standards of the day.

The free spirit's intellect is of a "superior quality and sharpness." It does not matter what motivates him---morality or immorality or the desire to shock---but what matters is that he refuses to be limited or shaped in his thinking by tradition and that he courageously seeks the truth, whatever it may be, and whether he finds it or not.

The free spirit ensures his independence from tradition by keeping reason as his ally. He does not believe or disbelieve in this claim or that claim because of habit, as does the "fettered spirit," but instead bravely applies his reason to all things, discovering for himself what is true or not, instead of letting society decide for him.

Nietzsche believes that the rigorous application of reason will ensure the free spirit his or her independence rom tradition, because tradition, he says, is based not on reason but on habit. As long as the free spirit does not fall into habit in his thinking, he will remain free. He says that the fettered spirit is not fettered because of his conclusions, but because he is a slave to an habitual way of seeing and thinking about the world and his place in it.

The fettered person may "believe" in something which is true, but he will remain fettered because he has arrived at that truth not through the liberation of reason but through the chains of habitual thinking. The free spirit remains free as long as he applies reason and avoids the mechanical reaction of such thinking based on habit and tradition.

The free spirit may well find that he agrees on some point with the fettered spirit, but that does not mean the two are the same in essence. The fettered spirit's conclusion, ba...

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Definition of Spiritual Freedom & Nietzsche. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:40, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1682242.html