Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born on 1844. He was a German Philosopher and critic excellence. He emerged as one of the most controversial, unconventional, and the most important figures in the history of modern philosophy. His philosophical enterprise grew out of his background as a philologist schooled in the study of classical languages and literatures. He had deep concerns with issues relating to the quality of life in the culture and society of his time. He sought both to comprehend this situation and to help provide humanity with a new lease on life, beyond what he called "the death of God" and "the advent of nihilism."
He had no formal philosophical training. His introduction to philosophy came through his discovery of Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Representation". His first publication was "The Book of Tragedy", which he published in 1872, soon after being appointed to a professorship of philology at Basle University. In 1878, he published the first of a series of volumes of aphorism and reflections under the title "Human, all too Human". It was followed during the next few years by two supplements which became a 2nd volume under the same title, by Daybreak, in 1881, and then by the initial 4-part version of "The Gay Science" in 1882. He died in the age of 44 in 1889.
References:
Hondorich, T. (1995). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
Oxford, New York : Oxford University Press.
