Thus Spoke Zarathustra | work by Strauss (2024)

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What is the main message of Thus Spoke Zarathustra? ›

Zarathustra urges people to embrace the physical world with all its suffering rather than postponing fulfillment until an afterlife. He critiques false idols and values, including nationalism. He views the state as promoting uniformity and mediocrity.

Unlike Beyond good and evil, which is extremely difficult stuff unless you are already familiar with Shopenhauer, Kant, Plato and various others philosophers, Zarathustra can be easily understood if you are familiar with Nietzshe's main ideas. The notes included at the end help understands the most obscure parts.

Still, in spite of his tone, and his attacks at Strauss' grammar, Nietzsche has both embraced Strauss' historical-critical interpretation of Christian origins, from his first work, and, with less acknowledgement, from the later work, strong elements of Strauss' moral critique of Christianity.

The Walter Kaufmann translation is generally considered as being the go to translation. It has been noted for being faithful to Nietzsche's writing and for overall staying true to the text by best representing the nuances and the language.

The book ends with Zarathustra joyfully embracing the eternal recurrence, and the thought that "all joy wants deep, wants deep eternity."

The main theme of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the nature of values. The values of traditional religions involve contempt for the body and a lack of creativity. Nietzsche thinks traditional religions ultimately lead to nihilism. Nietzsche proposes a morality that is creative and life-affirming.

"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche - Nietzsche's poetic and aphoristic style, combined with his radical ideas about morality, nihilism, and the Übermensch, make this work a difficult but rewarding read.

Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and therewith also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is now the dreadfulest sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!

Ubermensch Add to list Share. Other forms: Ubermenschen. A person who seems superhuman, with astounding powers, can be called an Ubermensch. This German word, more accurately spelled Übermensch, literally means "overman" and was coined in 1883 by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Now, after more than half a millennium of the study of syphilis and more than a century after Nietzsche's breakdown, our research suggests that the philosopher really did plummet abruptly into madness; armies of spirochetes did awaken suddenly from decades of slumber, and literally began to eat his brain.

Why did Nietzsche pick Zarathustra? ›

Thus, "[a]s Nietzsche admits himself, by choosing the name of Zarathustra as the prophet of his philosophy in a poetical idiom, he wanted to pay homage to the original Aryan prophet as a prominent founding figure of the spiritual-moral phase in human history, and reverse his teachings at the same time, according to his ...

Abstract. Many of the writings of Leo Strauss were dedicated to combating the "crisis of modernity". This crisis was for him the advent and acceptance of nihilism--a state of being wherein any principle one dare dream is allowed and judgment must be withheld.

According to Zarathustra, submission to traditional morality just perpetuates people's enslavement to it; the aim of the new, higher morality should be the arrival of the “Superman,” a higher form of humanity. Zarathustra gives concrete examples of elements of traditional morality that he believes ought to be rejected.

Mohamed Wouldn't recommend that at all. A good knowledge of the life of Nietzche and his work is necessary to decipher or at least understand the allegories and symbolism used in this book.

ZARATHUSTRA'S PROLOGUE. 1. When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it.

Zarathustra had a revelation from the god Ahura Mazda, according to the religious scriptures of the Gathas, that there was a cosmic war between Ahura Mazda and his antithesis and supreme evil Angra Mainyu. Zarathustra spread this message and how to align with Ahura Mazda, which was simply by living a virtuous life.

throughout Zarathustra uses wordplay to signify that Zarathustra's “going under” is a “going over” or transition, übergehen, from human to superhuman, from man to overman. After Zarathustra draws his first analogy between himself and the sun, I use “going under” for untergehen and its noun form Untergang.

His attempts to unmask the motives that underlie traditional Western religion, morality, and philosophy deeply affected generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights.

Nietzsche is a self-professed nihilist, although, if we are to believe him, it took him until 1887 to admit it (he makes the admission in a Nachlass note from that year). No philosopher's nihilism is more radical than Nietzsche's and only Kierkegaard's and Sartre's are as radical.