Nietzsche's vision of the Overhuman

• Main Author: Papandreopoulos, Georgios
• Published: Staffordshire University 2014
• Subjects: 193
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.683459

In this thesis we are going to examine the problem of the Overhuman [Übermensch] in the work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The Overhuman is a subject the notoriety of which far exceeds its careful treatment by Nietzsche’s commentators. Nietzsche’s mistreatment by the Nazis, the simplistic association of the term with Hollywood phantasies, as well as the large number of issues that the term covers, are some of the reasons for the relative obscurity of the term. On our part, we are going to investigate our subject by examining a broad array of issues and problems that Nietzsche wishes to address through the use of the term Overhuman. We are going to argue that, following the demise of various humanist ideologies in the West (all united under the all-powerful signifier of a transcendent God), man faces the challenge of having to justify his existence on earth solely by the utilization of immanent reasons, an event perhaps unprecedented in human history. Nietzsche tries partly to exemplify and partly imagine an earth that is going to be man-made and the various challenges and problems that this process is going to entail. We will argue that the term Overhuman refers to a process whereby man rediscovers an immanent culture and the new rules according to which life on earth is to take place; we are also going to examine the new political order which is going to replace the old one, which for the most part produced man as a docile animal, unable to stand up for his own rights and demands. Furthermore, we will examine the extent of the interconnection between the human and the Overhuman, an issue of the highest importance for Nietzsche. Finally, we are going to argue for a different, non-productive understanding of time that the Overhuman inaugurates and humanity is in desperate need for. Our thesis will argue for the centrality of the notion of the Overhuman in Nietzsche’s work; indeed we will argue that this is Nietzsche’s most persistent and most widely researched problem, and we are going to argue that without an, as much as possible, holistic examination of Nietzsche’s philosophy, the researcher will be either at a loss to understand Nietzsche’s Overhuman as problematic, or he will be destined to drive himself to wrong conclusions. Our thesis will show the extent of the challenge that Nietzsche’s thinking poses to Western culture and that any further cultural development of the human is unimaginable without modern humanity first facing the issues that Nietzsche has raised through his conception of the Overhuman.