Nihilism

to explore his Nietzsche's early and later response to nihilism and pessimism focused on reading I.This essay is focused on Nietzsche’s unique reading of the Pandora myth as it appears in Human, All Too Human and develops an interpretation of Hope, the most profound evil of the many evils released by Pandora infecting the human condition, as it might be understood in relation to Nietzsche’s analysis of the ancient Greeks in The Birth of Tragedy. In reading this early work of Nietzsche, modes of comportment that fall under two specific categories are considered: Passive Nihilism-Pessimism of Decline and Active Nihilism-Pessimism of Strength as understood by Nietzsche in the late compilation of his notes published as The Will to Power. Ultimately, this essay explores the artistic responses to the bleak and pessimistic conditions of the Greeks’ lives found in the Apolline art in the Homeric Greeks and the tragic-art of the Greeks, which Nietzsche argues is the ultimate expression of art as the merging of the “aesthetic” principles of the Apolline and Dionysiac. These aesthetic responses are elucidated in and through the comparison to modes of existence that impede the spirit’s optimal, flourishing development, specifically, as expressed through Christianity and “Socratic optimism” in the superior power of human reason.

The profundity of an idea, philosophy, or doctrine is often revealed by how it is accepted or rejected by others. Buddhist philosophy demonstrates this dynamic in its reception in the West. There are several illuminating perspectives on how Nietzsche interpreted Buddha, and on how these interpretations were received in both the West and the East. The claim that Nietzsche misinterpreted Buddha—similar to the way Schopenhauer and others interpreted Indian philosophical traditions—often overshadows Nietzsche’s more sympathetic engagement with Buddhism. However, the questions that concerned both thinkers cannot be fully addressed or resolved within a single generation, nor can we easily simplify their shared concerns. This paper focuses on critics’ portrayals of Nietzsche as having misinterpreted Buddha. Amidst various philosophical and existential issues, the paper seeks to foster a degree of sympathy for Nietzsche, and thus for Buddha as well, by exploring their concepts of ‘impermanence’ in relation to suffering and the relief from suffering. The shared element is the imperative ‘to overcome’: for Nietzsche, this concerns humanity; for Buddha, it concerns the self. The underlying hypothesis is that Gautama Buddha may be seen as Nietzsche’s Overman (Übermensch).