Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, and classical philologist whose provocative and often aphoristic writings have had an enormous influence on modern intellectual history. Originally a professor of classical philology at the University of Basel, he was forced to retire at age 34 due to deteriorating health. His major works—including Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science—launched a radical critique of traditional European morality, religion, and culture. He proclaimed the "death of God," arguing that the decline of religious faith in modern Europe demanded a fundamental revaluation of all values. His concept of the Übermensch (Overman) envisioned an individual who creates their own meaning and values in a godless world. His idea of the will to power described a fundamental driving force in humans toward achievement, ambition, and creative self-overcoming. He introduced the thought experiment of eternal recurrence—the idea that one should live as if one would have to relive one's life identically for eternity—as a test of one's affirmation of life. Nietzsche suffered a mental collapse in 1889 and spent his final eleven years in the care of his mother and sister. His work profoundly influenced existentialism, postmodernism, and twentieth-century thought broadly.
