I. Nietzsche and 19th-century dietetics

Dietetics experienced a major upsurge with the Enlightenment. Dietetics and hygiene meant not only eating and washing, but also all aspects that specifically affected the human way of life. In the 19th century, dietetics was considered practical and less dependent on theory, for some even as the only area of healing art that was not at the mercy of many changes in scientific knowledge. It was therefore natural to think about the connection between dietetics and intellectual activity. A whole series of popular books such as the The art of living for mentally busy people by Joseph Henri Réveillé-Parise, the Chemical letters by Justus von Liebig or The book of health or the art of living according to the institution and laws of human nature by Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber. The latter contains a chapter on “Rules of Life Relating to the Spiritual Side of Man.” This dietary discourse had a particular influence on the philosophers of the 19th century.

I have argued extensively in other texts that dietetics is decisive in Middle Nietzsche and there in particular in The Wanderer and His Shadow as well as in the Morgenröthe finds its way into Nietzsche's thinking and life.¹ Especially between 1877 and 1879, it is noticeable that Nietzsche uses dietary counselors. Especially in the late 1870s, Nietzsche complained that nutrition was not made an object of general reflection. Simple things such as eating, living, heating or dressing should become the primary matter of philosophical self-employment. This teaching of the “next things” is remarkably closely linked to his reading of the popular literature on advice and dietetics at the time.

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II. gazebo, Schreber & indoor gymnastics

Medical room gymnastics by Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber published in 1855.² Room or home gymnastics refers to regular physical exercises in living rooms, which are mostly carried out without additional equipment. Schrebers indoor gymnastics was the most popular guide. Nietzsche ordered this book (15th edition from 1877) on August 29, 1878 and shortly afterwards reported to mother and sister that he had just done “room gymnastics.”³ He writes to his publisher: “Therapeutic exercises have arrived and have already been used eagerly. ”⁴ Because of the well-known indoor gymnastics, it is no longer necessary to mention a book or an author.

However Nietzsche came up with the words “next” and “very closest” things, they are certainly part of popular contemporary discourse. Right in the first issue of the German family magazine gazebo Do you read the following statement in 1853: “And strange! Perhaps the closest thing that surrounds us, the closest thing to ourselves, is something most people don't know. ”⁵ Nietzsche, in turn, writes in similar wording: “All the more may one admit that the Very close things seen very poorly by most people, very rarely noticed. ”⁶ When Schreber spoke of disdain for the “simple, natural and obvious,” Nietzsche speaks of “disregard [...] Of all the closest things. ”⁷ In both cases, the argument is initially formulated independently of health. Schreber's weighting on contempt and Nietzsche on contempt is directed against the educated: they would mistakenly regard everyday life and the study of their own body as something trivial and low. The reaction to this state of general ignorance was similar among Schreber and Nietzsche: According to Schreber, the “physical needs” must be “thoroughly explored in their essence,” while Nietzsche demands comprehensive knowledge of the “next things.”⁸

Nietzsche sometimes argues provocatively from a dietary point of view: For example, he attributes the high culture of the Greeks to their better way of life in terms of “food and drink.”⁹ The belief that good nutrition improves blood flow to the “brain” and would therefore think better is common in dietary guides due to emerging brain research since the 18th century. Schreber, for example, describes extensively in the indoor gymnastics the metabolic process of nutrition, exercise, blood and physical-mental “freshness” and “strength.”¹⁰ Schreber's hygienic methods as well as Nietzsche's knowledge of the “next things” can never be completed, but must be constantly reworked depending on the phase of life, gender, age, physique, social situation, climate and location. That is why Nietzsche and Schreber only offer individual healing methods and health conditions. In this sense, Nietzsche also demands — once again taking up a popular dietary argument — that everyone should be transplanted into their nutritionally suitable environment.¹¹ This should have made it clear that contemporary dieters did not simply stop at nutrition or health prevention, but also pursued a philosophical claim. Schreber regards his room gymnastics as part of a “hygienic health philosophy.” It is ultimately about “happiness” and the most important art of all, the “art of living.”¹²

Nietzsche uses room gymnastics as a philosophical model for morality in one of his aphorisms. In aphorism”Most necessary gymnastics“from The Wanderer and His Shadow is asked to fail yourself something every day.¹³ This is essential daily exercise if you want to remain joyful and independent. And in Human, all-too-human Gymnastics even became a model for the question of why philosophy makes you want: “First and above all, because it makes you aware of your strength, i.e. for the same reason that gymnastic exercises are pleasurable even without spectators. ”¹⁴ It is not an intellectual theorem, but the everyday experience of room gymnastics — feeling one's own strength through daily practice — which is able to explain the desire for philosophy.

The doctrine of “next things” in the context of popular culture is the precursor to Nietzsche's philosophical connection of body and soul or body and spirit. Many passages in Nietzsche's works testify to this narrowing: For example, in the dictum of the “guideline of the body” in the required philosophy of nutrition.¹⁵ The figure of Zarathustra says: “For truly, my brothers, the spirit is a stomach! ”¹⁶ In addition, popular dietetics is not only reflected in Nietzsche's works, but also in his everyday life: Nietzsche eagerly practiced indoor gymnastics, tried out meat substitutes such as malto legumes and was a big fan of Liebig's meat extract, the first preservable meat broth. Last but not least, after giving up his professorship, he lived in a lot of popular tourist resorts, some of which were overcrowded, such as St. Moritz, where he came into contact with popular culture in an almost concentrated way. Nietzsche described the interrelationships between location, climate, dietetics and philosophy one year after Wanderer and his shadow blunt in aphorism”In a roundabout way“from the Morgenröthe. Here, what was lived in concrete and practical terms in the writing situation in St. Moritz is expressed philosophically: philosophy as an “instinct for a personal diet” (not the other way around!).¹⁷ And the draft of the aphorism states: “This whole philosophy — is it more than a drive to prove that ripe fruit, unleavened bread, water, loneliness, order in all things taste best to me and are the most beneficial? So an instinct for a right dieting in everything? And a mild sun! ”¹⁸

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III. Nietzsche research struggles with popular culture

In philosophical research, popular literature is often underestimated and its philosophical claim is thus overlooked. I vaguely remember a presentation about Nietzsche when I was a student. A philosopher explained to us that Nietzsche was an excellent, original thinker because he had only read “big” literature. This meant the “classics” such as Goethe, Kant or Schopenhauer from recent times; Plato, Aristotle or Homer from antiquity. Nietzsche evaded all trivial literature and only dealt with the great ghosts. Even then, I doubted this ingenious aesthetic author image, which is still used today by “researching” Nietzsche admirers. Authorship, on the other hand, seemed exciting to me precisely because the most diverse living conditions, peculiarities, hobbies, reading and methods of thinking influence people who write philosophically. Creativity doesn't care about differences between high and popular culture. Reading different types of literature simply corresponds to the reading practices of a popular person, such as Nietzsche. In fairness, it must be noted that Nietzsche himself sometimes quoted little and presented himself as a little-reading, lonely philosopher. At the same time, however, he criticized the aesthetics of genius and, with his passages on writing, reading and authorship, also left enough clues to critically question his own self-portrayals. In addition, current editions, bibliographies and case studies allow research with historical-critical standards.

The influences of popular culture on Nietzsche and his thinking (as on every philosopher living in society) are relevant. Two disguised forms of interpretation repeatedly attempt to diminish this relevance. They thus practice genius aesthetics, i.e. promote an idea of authors as geniuses who act incomprehensibly, acontextually, independently of historical-cultural contexts and therefore produce incomparably brilliant works. Such an attitude towards authorship gets in the way of a scientific approach, especially when it is believed, as is today, that we have long since overcome the aesthetic of genius. Two such ingenious aesthetic strategies persist:

Popular cultural influences are firstly replaced by “classic” positions of well-known philosophers. In this way, an idealized “intellectual story” is constructed: At the end of explanations of Nietzsche's philosophy of nutrition, people like to read that this is a direct reaction to Feuerbach (“You are what you eat”), Epicurus or other “classical” sources of ideas. Such interpretations relativize cultural influences and actions in favor of an idealized primacy of original thoughts and decisions made by individual authors. The claim to be able to contextualize and classify a philosophy historically and critically is not just a philological project. Rather, reading, working and living styles provide important resources for philosophical engagement.

Second Popular cultural influences are put into perspective as small building blocks of “big” ideas. Although Nietzsche's philosophy of nutrition is addressed, it is teleologically related to “overarching” ideas such as superman, the will to power, or Nietzsche's metaphysical critique. The “material” diet is the “small” thing, the spiritual-conceptual metaphysical critique is actually the “big” or the philosophically relevant part of the work. It is not at all easy to analyse popular cultural influences independently and “let” their relevance stand.

This not only interprets inadmissibly, but sometimes ignores Nietzsche's own reversal of this relationship. It is thanks to Nietzsche that his work and way of life as philosophical To have understood practices. He has rediscovered the life-world aspects of everyday life for philosophy and as a philosophy thematized. For example, he wrote rhetorically about the relationship between his diet and “big” thoughts as in Ecce Homo: “In a completely different way, I am interested in a question on which the “salvation of humanity” depends more than on any theologian curiosity: the question of sustenance. [...] these little things — nutrition, location, climate, recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness — are more important than anything that has been taken important up to now. You just have to start here relearn”.¹⁹ More subtly in a tongue-in-cheek letter: “It occurred to me these days that I had done 'The Dawn, ''Happy Science,' and the 'Zarathustra: 'Considering that this literature belongs to the term 'Liebig Meat Extract,' I mustn't get angry about my 'health' — rather amaze! ”²⁰

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Tobias Brücker has a doctorate in cultural studies and is head of internal continuing education at the Zurich University of the Arts. He has researched Nietzsche's working methods and published the monograph Auf dem Weg zur Philosophie. Friedrich Nietzsche schreibt „Der Wanderer und sein Schatten“ in 2019. He is interested in all facets of diets, authorship, and creativity techniques in philosophy and the arts.

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Sources

Brücker, Tobias: Auf dem Weg zur Philosophie. Friedrich Nietzsche schreibt „Der Wanderer und sein Schatten“. Wilhelm Fink 2019.

Dr. l-N [anonymous]: Vom Baue des Menschen. In: Die Gartenlaube (1853). Leipzig 1853, p. 91.

Schreber, Daniel G.M.: Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik. Leipzig 1862.

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Photo credits

Figure for “Rumpfaufrichten”, from Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, p. 62.

Figure of “Leg throws forwards and backwards” and “sideways”, from Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, p. 81.

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Footnotes

1: See esp. Brücker, Auf dem Weg zur Philosophie, chapter 3.3 on “Writing and Dietetics” and the paragraph “Nietzsche's Reading Popular Dietetics”, p. 173 ff.

2: I quote Schreber here and subsequently after what is available to me 8th edition from 1862.

3: N. to Franziska and Elisabeth Nietzsche, 21.09.1878, No. 759.

4: N. to Schmeitzner, 10.09.1878, No. 754.

5: Gartenlaube (1853): Dr. L-n, p. 91. This is an anonymously published series of articles.

6: Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, p. 5; The Wanderer and His Shadow, 6.

7: The Wanderer and His Shadow, 5.

8: Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik , p. 12; The Wanderer and His Shadow, 6.

9: The Wanderer and His Shadow, 184.

10: Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, p. 14.

11: Cf. The Wanderer and His Shadow, 188.

12: Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, S. 28.

13: The Wanderer and His Shadow, 305.

14: Human, all-too-human Vol. I, 252.

15: Cf. The happy science, 7.

16: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, From old and new boards, 16.

17: Morgenröthe, 553.

18: precursor Subsequent fragments 1880, 7 [15].

19: Ecce homo, Why I'm so smart, 1.

20: N. to Overbeck, 28.03.1884, No. 497.