Nietzsche's Historical Philosophizing
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1. In Human, All Too Human, Friedrich Nietzsche offers a new method for investigating philosophy by holding that what he calls "historical philosophizing" is a scientific method that will challenge traditional metaphysics. In this work, Nietzsche presents his ideas in terms of aphorisms of varying lengths, a method of writing that allows the philosopher to identify and explain separate ideas while at the same time linking those ideas into a larger whole. Nietzsche offers himself as an example of the "free spirit" who can utilize his own history as a source of his philosophy. This emphasis on subjectivity is one of the things that links Nietzsche with the existentialists, as does his rejection of the superiority of any philosophical system. Nietzsche's method may be subjective, but he is also determined to avoid the mistakes he sees in others who write from a similar perspective. He writes, "Most thinkers write badly because they tell us not only their thoughts but also the thinking of the thoughts." Nietzsche writes from a high level of abstraction and maintains his focus, keeping his thoughts to the point in a very powerful way. The personal becomes the general not because Nietzsche softens the specifically subjective nature of his thought but because of the power and unity with which he expresses each idea as drawn from his own direct observation and thought.2. Existentialism is the term used to refer to a number of related philosophical points of view which be
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by Freud in terms of a change in the governing value system of the individual. Human nature in the state of nature is one thing, while human nature in civilization has been reshaped. As the individual develops during the life cycle, the ego, or the sense of self, changes from encompassing everything to detaching itself from the external world and thus including only the inner world of the self, and in this fashion the individual makes the first step toward the introduction of the reality principle which dominates future development:
The animal man becomes a human being only through a fundamental transformation of his nature, affecting not only the instinctual aims but also the instinctual "values"--that is, the principles that govern the attainment of the aims (Marcuse 12).
Marcuse shows that domination and alienation, as derived from the prevalent social organization of labor, has determined to a large extent the demands imposed upon the instincts by this reality principle. Freedom of the body means freedom from this oppression of the body from and by labor. Marcuse addresses many of the same issues and structures as does Marx, but in terms of a psychological component.
5. Critical theory begins with the belief that
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2052
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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