It is well known that Nietzsche had a hard time with women. His sexual orientation and activity are still riddled with mystery and speculation today. Time and again, this question inspired artists of both genders to create provocatively mocking representations. Can he possibly be described as an “incel”? As an involuntary bachelor, in the spirit of today's debate about the misogynistic “incel movement”? Christian Saehrendt explores this question and tries to shed light on Nietzsche's complicated relationship with the “second sex.”

It is no secret that one of Nietzsche’s most important philosophical references was the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). That’s reason enough to trace the history of Nietzsche’s reception of Schopenhauer in a two-part article. In the first part, Schopenhauer scholar Tom Bildstein examines how the young Leipzig philology student Nietzsche was first inspired by Schopenhauer’s magnum opus The World as Will and Representation (1818), only to turn into a harsh critic of the Frankfurt “sourpuss” within a few years. — Link to part 2.