It’s all personal preference I suppose, some influential philosophers can be hard to read. For example, I really don’t like to read Locke though I recognize his value. Anyway, the one sentence summary or Nietzsche is that he wrote about a lot of the nihilism and tragedy that accompanies a society which is becoming less religious and more scientific. Since there is no moral code because God is dead, nothing matters, essentially. He also doesn’t believe in free will and thinks the very idea of it is a stupidity.

Personally, I value his contribution to philosophy, and I am amazed at how many of his predictions came to pass (particularly those predicting the world wars) but I’m not fully on board with his nihilism. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Nietzsche quotes, though: “If you crush a cockroach, you’re a hero. If you crush a beautiful butterfly, you’re a villain. Morals have an aesthetic criteria.”

Hope this was of some help, though I’m by no means a Nietzsche expert, maybe a YouTube video on him could help you out.

Nietzsche is all about finding your own truth and living it, not taking everything instilled in you by society as the only truth.

He always points out hypocrisy, especially religious. ("There was only one Christian and He died on the cross").

His concept of ubermensch was more about rising above yourself and ascending, but was corrupted by his sister to support the Nazis and turned onto racist bullshit.

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I despise him. He says some true and original things, but in contrast to the calm Socratic tradition of philosophy he comes off like a ranting talkback host. A brilliant one, but one not right in the head and one who encourages his listeners' worst instincts. By and large I think he has had quite a damaging effect on the world.

One of Irvin D. Yalom's most acclaimed works is a novel called "When Nietzsche Wept". Apart from being an introduction to the history of philosophy, this book portrays a human and vulnerable side of Nietzsche, albeit in a fictional realm. I would suggest giving this book a try before reaching any verdict. It could build a bridge between your present understanding of him and his worldview- which might be at this moment not so easily accessible, but nonetheless worth meditating upon.

Part of Nietzsche's appeal is his aphoristic style. It makes him very quotable, like the famous "And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you" or "Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger." He wrote with a verve that makes him interesting to read, even if you don't agree with his conclusions.

>Nietzsche is surely the most famous and influential philosopher of the contemporary society

Not sure about that. It's been said that practically everything is a footnote to Plato and Aristotle.

He's a pretty good early indicator that someone has entered the tech bro to fascist pipeline. If someone is really getting into Nietzsche without an interest in the philosophical questions leading up to or coming after his writings, it usually signifies a yearning to systematize their personal whims and prejudices and imagine that they're of world historic significance.

A sharp intervention with philosophical materialism is in order.

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I think philosophy like a knife you can cut bread or you can cut people. Philosophy Nietzsche you can use for improve yourself like personality. Or use it to raise legions of Nazis hitting them in the head concept about them dominance over other races.

Do you mean he’s influential because his writings inspired some of the most cataclysmic events in human history in this past century? I am not a fan of his, but I’d still prefer to think he wouldn’t have liked the effect of his words and musings on the more action prone and single minded.

I've never heard that quote before but wow, that's brilliant. Thanks.

I would argue Plato and Aristotle are not contemporary. It could also be argued that Nietzsche is not either but he is definitely a philosopher of a different era than Plato and Aristotle and he definitely is one of the most influential of his era. Hell, I would argue he is the most influential of the 19th century but that’s more of an opinion.

You don’t have to like (or even understand) everything that’s popular. If something is not clicking for you,don’t force yourself.

I haven’t read his works extensively but I particularly enjoy his views of the dichotomy between the Apollonian and the Dionysiac aspects of the self.

But like others said above, anyone that reads only Nietzsche, and seems to have no other interest in philosophy, should raise some huge red flags.

My favourite book of his is The birth of tragedy. It's about Greek philosophy. And saw him expelled from his university career, as a result. Highly recommended

I mean, I think Saul Kripke is the most important philosopher of the 20th Century, but you're right that Neitzsche is more well-known. As for a summary, I would say he is more of a polemicist than a philosopher, but there are some beneficial bits of wisdom that can be gleaned from his works with repeated reading.

For better or worse it’s pretty clear that either Hegel or Marx is the most influential philosopher of the 19th century. Nietzsche isn’t even close.

The problem is I need a thesaurus in my other hand and the process feels like re explaining a joke hoping it becomes funny.

Jeeves (Bertie Wooster's well-educated valet in the books by P G Wodehouse) said that Nietzsche was 'fundamentally unsound' and that he much preferred Spinoza.

Nietzsche was about desconstructing all categories of things. He was pointing out how much of what we believe is false, and often manufactured to serve a purpose. Which was sort of part one of his project - philosophizing with a hammer as he put it. The real point of his work is, once those categories are destroyed and you can no longer rely on them, how do you address the void? His ideas on a will to power was a way to keep going in spite of this void. He’s not a nihilist - he was attempting to address how one responds to nihilism (with the decay of institutions, namely the Church, the questions of nihilism would naturally arise to people back then.) You have to view everything in context of the larger project, not just individual sections or quotes.

He was also obviously very influential on other thinkers like Frankl and Foucault. If you get into Foucault, having more familiarity with Nietzsche can help (although, I’ll say it took me about 4 readings of selected Foucault works before I had a clue of what he was doing. Once you get it, it kinda clicks and it’s hard to unlearn, but he was doing something similar to Nietzsche in deconstructing things.)

Note: It’s also important to realize that he was co-opted by the Nazis partly via selective editing from his sister after he went insane and died. She may have been a Nazi or she may have just been trying to survive in Germany, but the effect is the same.

Yeah, I commented a second ago, but this is on point. Nietzsche has to be read in context and with his full philosophical project in mind, or you end up with people misunderstanding him and pretty much becoming sociopathic. See: Leopold and Loeb.

Definitely for the best and the worst he is very quotable...

Anti-humanist that appeals to cringe lord college Freshmen and authoritarians and fascists.

If all Nietzsche disappeared tomorrow, this world would be a better place.

I agree with Jeeves.

I would recommend starting out with The Gay Science translated by Walter Kaufmann. A good translation (and footnotes, which Kaufmann provides) is invaluable in connecting the dots of Nietzsche's thoughts into a coherent web of ideas.

N had an uncanny knack for getting to the root of our beliefs and values through observation and introspection, and he gave voice to his ideas in profoundly creative and inventive writing. Though a monolingual English speaker myself, I've heard that he is almost the Shakespeare of the German language along with Goethe.

I wouldn’t say he’s the most famous or influential. Plus it depends what you Count as modern. People like Sartre, Camus, Marx, Foucault are probably used more, even if not read more.

I think part of Nietzche’s appeal is his kind of exotic topics, he’s talking about atheism and power and depression in a highly spiritual and fantasy sense as a social outsider. I think a lot of people, particularly young men, might find that appealing.

What’s locke’s value? He was the key philosopher of settler-colonialism and his Carolina constitution was one of the first to ever inscribe slaves with zero rights where previously the owner had rules of how they had to treat them. Dude was a hardcore slavery/colonialism thinker who developed the idea of terra nullius, that if you’re not building on the land you don’t have the right to own it.

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Sartre, Camus and Foucault 's ideas were profoundly influenced by Nietzsche... Marx almost certainly not, though you can't discount the possibility of a reaction against Nietzsche's ideas. Just in terms of pure destructive influence, Nietzsche and Marx have almost certainly had the most impact on the events of the last century, though they can't carry the blame for the abuses and misinterpretations of their followers.

At his best, Nietzsche was very witty and could write a hell of an aphorism. At his worst he was angry and lashed out at the world in grandiose and pathetic ways.

His discussions of atheism and morality are normally pretty half-baked and without depth. The area he seems to have cared the most about, and where he is at his best (in my opinion) is his conception of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same. That's not unique to him but he alone really develops that idea in ways that no other contemporary existentialists do. It's worth wading through some of his otherwise syphilis-addled edgelordism to read these parts of his works of you have the time and stomach for it.

Just started reading Nietzche recently after hearing a lot about them in my culture studies and then, more detailly when reading Freud and Jung. Currently, I'm reading the Antichrist/Ecce Homme and i genuinely am amused with his writing syle. His ability to write blunty and to deconstruct/reconstruct moral values in such a cynical, sarcastic and egoistical way is absolutely captivating. I believe he teaches people to really think for themselves and be very pratical and logical when faced with arguments and debates surrounding topics that are sensitive to us. I mean, Nietzche criticies Cristianity in such a ideological and unfiltered way that we are inclined to believe that he is not a cristian, when in fact, he was. True, in a sense you can't take big lessons from him like you can take from other grand authors (and by lessons i mean theoretical truths). Still, a lot can be learned from the way he tackles the problems in his works. If anything, he teaches you to not take any knowledge, any sort of truth, tradition, religion, or high moral law as truth, or as being unquestioned.

Nietzsche was a romantic at heart. Read him for his prose if you're having trouble understanding his world view.

Thus Spake Zarathustra is mind blowing. "And how could I endure to be a man if he were not also poet and reader of riddles and a way to new dawns?"

I read somewhere that he was explicitly parodying philosophy, which is an interesting take and makes some sense when you look at him that way

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I can see an argument for Marx being the most influential politician philosopher of the the 19th century. But he is really only known for his political philosophy. Nietzsche is known for breakthroughs in multiple areas. And if I am being frank I have never heard of Hagel but I looked him up and would be interested in any recommendations you have on where to start with his works.

I like that he put hopes in vanity. He destroy the myth of the sacred humanity and at the same time give it the power to be up its potential. It's like a lyrical god slayer.

Marx wrote before Nietzsche so if anything the reaction was the other way around

As others have mentioned, Nietzsche tears down many of the established "truths" that many took as self-evident. He did that with Christianity, as many have said, but he also did it with Hegel. As a result, he (along with others) paves the way for the Existentialists and the Post-Structuralists.

He demands honesty from his culture and readers.

You want to pretend that God exists even though you act like he really doesn't? You won't be ready to confront the consequences of that decision.

You want to entertain the possibility that meaning is elusive; that you can't derive it from history, culture, or yourself? Get ready to struggle for the rest of your life.

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As with all philosophy - the value is in the ideas presented for you to consider.

What will follow is a a series of oversimplification, but I hope that it will help.

Consider the main philosophical question in the Ancient Greek people, often considered to be the source of philosophy in the Western world; "What is happiness?" and "How can we be happy?"

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Consider the main philosophical question of metaphysics, "Is there a God?", and "if there is, what is our relationship to God?"

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Such simplifications can be made for epistemeology (What is knowledge? Can we know anytyig? What does this mean for us?), or for the political philosophy that was so popular during the Renaissance and well into the 20th century.

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Nietzsche is arguably in different in not asking what X means for human beings in the context of philosophy, but what human beings means, and what being a human being entails in the context of philosophy.

Nietzsche is the first one to situate philosophy in our daily life, and in our existence in general. The first one to ask, "How one must live?" or "what is the proper way to live?" in that, he is the one questioning what is the proper way to exist, as opposed to discussing how a particular wary of existing might benefit us

I suggest Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Writings" by Penguin for a more eloquent and detailed explanation.

i believe his works have definitely been influential, and when i was younger and less mature, i thought his ideas were good and valuable. i think a lot of people do when younger honestly. now i have an uneasy feeling of dislike when value is attributed to nietzsche, and his philosophy to me feels like praise of ego which is opposite to my own value system. i believe his idea of a superior man who is above ethics and morals is foolish, arrogant, and inherently harmful. the influence his ideas had on the nazi party and the idea of eugenics should speak to that. separately, existentialism is interesting and valuable to learn about, really it's nietzsche in particular that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. i think if you don't connect or resonate with his ideas, drop and read something else honestly,like maybe camus!

small disclaimer: it's been a long time since i have read both nietzsche and camus, so take what i said with a grain of salt! :)

Nietzsche is renowned for the brevity of his aphorisms.

Phenomenology of Spirit

I love it

Native German speaker, can confirm than Nietzsche's grasp of style is impeccable.

Interesting interpretation…

Sure bud, whatever helps you sleep at night.

A worm was crawling in the dirt and met another worm. Hey you wanna get married? But I'm your tail. Uh ok do you still wanna get married? Superfluous tail chasing is my opinion of philosophy especially Nietzsche. You only come away with what you came in with.

He popularized Nihilism.

We believe in nothing Lebowski

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You're quite right, I had it in my mind they were published contemporaneously, for some reason.

Years ago, I wrote my college undergraduate thesis on Nietzsche. This is an excellent succinct answer. Well done!

>Since there is no moral code because God is dead, nothing matters, essentially.

I don't think Nietzsche believes that the absence of an divine and immutable moral law necessarily leads us to the nihilistic conclusion that "nothing matters". Rather, he argues that this void of meaning left in the wake of God's death leaves us with the freedom to construct our own moral laws and bring about a "revaluation of all values".

>He also doesn’t believe in free will and thinks the very idea of it is a stupidity.

Nietzsche's views on free will can easily be misconstrued depending on one's interpretation of what "free will" means. Specifically, Nietzsche attacks the egalitarian notion of free will with its doctrines of "equal rights for all" and universal compassion. Such ideas, according to Nietzsche, amount to the very antithesis of his own conception of free will, which affirms individual agency and self-determination. He terms this conception of free will the "will to power", associating it with values of vitality, passion and strength as opposed to the sense of passivity and restraint that is characteristic of egalitarian free will. The fundamental principle of egalitarianism, in Nietzsche's view, is the vengeance of the weak, who enviously seek to condemn and suppress the will of the strong and thus diminish them to their level of frailty. Having sated their lust for vengeance, they disguise their petty envy in the virtuous costume of "justice", and "freedom", all while bringing about the disease of mediocrity that plagues modern society. It is this notion of "free will" that Nietzsche despises and regards with contempt.

If you’re referring to the holocaust, that was his sister’s fault for manipulating certain things he said to support the Nazi uprising. It was in no way Nietzsche’s fault nor his intention.

Thank you very much. :)

I love nietzsche. I agree with OP it isn't for everyone, and like all philosophy it takes a lot of imagination and conceptualization in order to truly "live" in the philosophy. Simply reading nietzsche from a stoic, academic standpoint was not the way to go. I really had to dive deep into his books and cover myself with them, head to toe, haha. Nietzsche is the true end of philosophy

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No offense... but if you've never even heard if Hegel it's hard to take your opinions on the relative importance of philosophers very seriously.

I'm unfamiliar with Kripke... can you give some (brief) thoughts on why he's the most important and some suggestions for an entry point into his work?

🤷‍♂️ take it however you want to. It was only ever one strangers anonymous opinion on the Internet.

No wait!!! Your opinions on the things you do know, and have thought about, are always valuable and welcome. I just think that any statement about who is the most important "x" doesn't make a lot of sense if you don't know who the other most famous and influential "x"s are... whether we're talking about philosophers, scientists, writers, or anything.

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Nietzsche is definitely worth the effort. Don’t read Thus Spoke Zarathustra first save it for latter and try the Walter Kaufmann translation.

I've read Nietzsche's work several times.