In this two-part essay, Paul Stephan examines how Nietzsche uses the wanderer as a personification of modern nihilism. After he is in the first part (link) focused on the general cultural significance of movement metaphors and the metaphor of wandering in Nietzsche's important brother in spirit, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, it will now primarily be about Nietzsche himself.

As in our series of articles”Hikes with Nietzsche“It has already been made clear that the metaphor of wandering plays a fundamental role in Nietzsche's work. In this two-part essay, Paul Stephan explores how Nietzsche uses the wanderer as a personification of modern nihilism and thus diversifies a central theme of cultural modernity, which can also be found in the writings of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who was born on May 5, 1813 in Copenhagen, where he also died on November 11, 1855.

Perhaps it is Nietzsche's main philosophical achievement that he described thinking as a process that happens in person. For him, reflection is a cooperative tension of body and mind. The mind is grounded in the nervous cosmopolitanism of the body. Nietzsche's conversion of Christianity: The flesh becomes word. This shows thinking in gestures. The following is intended to provide a sketch which indicates the main types of these reflexive gestures. This is intended to illustrate what it means when Nietzsche repeatedly describes himself as a wanderer. An intellectual tour that leads from standing and sitting as basic modes of traditional philosophy to walking, (out) wandering and halcyonic flying as Nietzsche's alternative modes of liberated thought and life.

The Inn River rises at an altitude of just under 2,500 m in southeastern Switzerland, in the canton of Graubünden. Over a distance of 80 km, it first flows through a high-mountain valley called the Engadin. Here, not far from the sophisticated spa town of St. Moritz, it crosses two small lakes, Lake Sils and Lake Silvaplana, between which lies the idyllic mountain village of Sils Maria. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche spent several summers in this exquisite landscape and was inspired by it to write some of his most important works. Christian Saehrendt set out to search for clues at what is perhaps the most important “pilgrimage site” on the Nietzsche scene.

In his recently published study Theory of Liberation [Theorie der Befreiung]Frankfurt philosopher Christoph Menke describes liberation as “fascination,” as pleasurable desubjectization and dedication. He refers decisively to Nietzsche — but for him, “fascination” means bewitching, entanglement in lack of freedom and resentment. Can the mystical power of fascination really set us free — or is it not rather Nietzsche's right and liberation means above all self-empowerment and autonomy, whereas the fascinated sacrifice means submission, not least to a fascist leader?