Weltgeist

Ancient Greece Was a Lot More Violent Than You Think. Here’s Why.

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 18:07:30 -0000

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▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Loved Thucydides: https://youtu.be/XI2dVkHoG7Q

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 A strange discovery
03:16 Aeschylus
06:30 Plato’s Republic
10:36 The Melian Dialogue
14:11 The Riace Bronzes

Music:
"Devastation and Revenge"
"Drums of the Deep"
"Suonatore di Liuto"
by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Why Society is Sick | Nietzsche and Dostoevsky

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 17:45:00 -0000

To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/Weltgeist/. The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription.

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Loved Dostoevsky: https://youtu.be/k6b6aTMw6iM

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
03:09 Décadence
05:23 The slave revolt in morals
08:57 The auto-domestication of man
11:16 The birth of décadence
12:17 The criminal
17:19 Dostoevsky's House of the Dead
19:26 The exceptions

It's a short passage in Twilight of the Ideals where Nietzsche deals with the criminal and his psychological valuation of him. But in order to fully comprehend Nietzsche unorthodox sociology and psychology of the criminal, we need to take deep dive through his entire philosophy, and visit The Genealogy of Morals as well as The Antichrist.

Décadence and the morality of custom take center stage as Nietzsche sketches a sociology where society domesticates man. It suppresses our violent instincts so that society can run smoothly. Better to be cooperative, well-spoken, polite, than an aggressive, violent brute.

But the suppression of these animalistic drives in man comes at a cost: it fosters a disease which Nietzsche dubbed décadence, and all of society, through the long march of history from the paleolithic, through Christianity, to now, has become sick with it.

Only some individuals retain a bit of their primal strength. Not fully internalized, not fully externalized. That is the criminal: the strong man made sick.

Nietzsche puts traditional sociology on its head: rather than the criminal being the odd one out, being the exception, Nietzsche says society is the exception, society is the sick one, the criminal the healthy one. Only that he has become sick because his environment is sick.

The criminal who loses the fight against society, succumbs to it, and internalizes his aggression and develops a bad conscience. But some individuals are so strong that they aren't changed by society -- they change society.

This video was sponsored by Brilliant. Thanks!

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Nietzsche's Problem With Socrates

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 17:22:30 -0000

To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/Weltgeist/ . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche opens up the chapter "The Problem of Socrates" with a bold statement: he calls him ugly.

By itself that's not really a controversial statement: Socrates's unsightly physique is well-attested in ancient sources, and Socrates himself (with a dint of his trademark irony) even agrees with detractors who insult his looks. (His bulging crab-like eyes, for example, allow him to take a broader view of the world than those with normal, forward-facing eyes can... he says to his friend Crito.)

What's so provocative about Nietzsche's statement is not the statement itself but rather that he uses it as an argument against Socrates. Isn't that the classic example of an ad hominem attack? You're ugly therefore you're wrong?

But Nietzsche goes deeper into it and uses the ugliness of Socrates as a springboard to critique ancient Greek culture - how Socrates and the Socrates Revolution was a symptom of decadence, of the ancient pre-Socratic Greeks losing their noble tastes, allowing themselves to be seduced by reason, allowing Socrates to convince them that from now on, they needed good reasons, solid arguments, for their way of life. The happy instinct of the powerful, that needs no justification beyond itself, now stood in need of a justification: good reasons were required for your beliefs.

And the Greeks had Socrates to thank for that.

For Nietzsche, this is not a sign of philosophical enlightenment, but a sign of decay, of decadence, of a loss of strength; of weakness.

Moreover, with Socrates, the way was paved for Plato, and his world-changing distinction between appearance and reality. The Greeks used to judge books by their covers, and Plato changed that. Now, there is this rotten, fallen, imperfect material world juxtaposed with a perfect World of Forms. For the pre-Socratic Greeks, this idea was not as forceful as it is today: appearance WAS reality.

And only ugly Socrates, who could not compete with the strong, healthy, noble Greeks on physical terms, had to invent a kind of mental challenge: the tyranny of reason, and the prelude to the World of Forms where reason would reign supreme over all the rest. Mind over body, reason over instinct, idea over reality.

This video was sponsored by Brilliant.

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Why Nietzsche Hated English Philosophy

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 17:00:00 -0000

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NIETZSCHE: Will to Power - Introduction (part 1)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 16:37:30 -0000

Welcome to the first part of our series on the famous Will to Power. We will tackle this elusive concept of Nietzsche in three parts.

This first part will serve as an introduction of sorts. We’ll go over Nietzsche’s intellectual background, most importantly the influence of Schopenhauer and Darwinism. We will also look at the question of interpretation: is the Will to Power a metaphysical principle or simply a human drive or emotion?

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Why Do Christians Celebrate Christmas? St. Anselm on Why God Became Man | Theology

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 16:15:00 -0000

St. Anselm of Canterbury was an Italian Benedictine monk who lived in the 11th century AD. Chiefly known for his so-called ontological proof of God, he also wrote other theological treatises such as "Why God Became Man".
This video explores the theological significance of Christmas. Why did God become human? What was the point?

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Why Quantum Physicists Love Schopenhauer

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 15:52:30 -0000

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Nietzsche REALLY Hated Priests

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 15:30:00 -0000

To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/Weltgeist/ . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
02:56 Insanity and censored works
05:24 The Law against Christianity
07:57 Philosophy of Insanity?
10:00 First proposition
14:09 Second proposition
25:53 Third proposition
26:26 Fourth proposition
32:14 Fifth proposition
34:17 Sixth proposition
40:38 Seventh proposition

Nietzsche's The Antichrist was written in 1888 but only published 6 years later. Publication was delayed because not long after writing the work, Nietzsche started writing his so-called "insanity letters" (Wahnbriefe) to friends, which caused them concern for his mental well-being. He signs these letters as either The Crucified One or Dionysus, and claims (among other things) he has created the world and that the Pope should be shot.

His friends are concerned and send him to the doctor while they take control over the manuscript of The Antichrist. The book would not see publications for over half a decade.

Ostensibly, because they thought this book was written while Nietzsche was already mentally unwell and that therefore, it shouldn't be considered a serious work of philosophy of his. But actually, the book itself is very straightforward, sets out arguments in a neat, orderly manner -- totally unlike his later insanity letters. No, the book was more than likely withheld because of its radical anti-Christian contents.

The final page of the book, a declaration of a "Law against Christianity" was initially omitted from the work because it was thought to be a separate note that wasn't necessarily intended to be included. Later scholarship has proven that this enigmatic final page should indeed be part of the Antichrist, but even today many editions lack this concluding section of the work.

It was suppressed for its radical tone and anti-Christian sentiment. Why? Nietzsche is, characteristically for this period, hyperbolic and radical. He lists seven propositions, policy proposals, that together make up his "Law against Christianity."

In summary, they are:

1) Priests should be locked up
2) Church services are an attack on public morality
3) The birthplace of Christianity should be razed to the ground
4) Chastity is anti-nature
5) Associating with priests should be a crime
6) Words like “God”, “savior” and “redeemer” should be used as insults, fit for criminals
7) All the rest follows from this.

This video takes a deeper dive into each proposition Nietzsche wrote down here, and examines them in the light of his earlier philosophy. Was this final page the work of a madman, writing on the edge of insanity, or does it follow logically from his earlier work?

This video was sponsored by Brilliant.

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Was Schopenhauer a Pessimist?

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 15:07:30 -0000

The philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer has often been cited as a textbook example of philosophical pessimism. Yet, strangely enough, Schopenhauer himself never refers to either himself, or his writings, as pessimistic. Even stranger, Schopenhauer has often been called a hypocrite for having a pessimistic philosophy while also enjoying fine dining in Frankfurt restaurants, frequent trips to the opera, and affairs with women. As Nietzsche famously remarked (in Beyond Good and Evil), he played the flute every night -- is this a pessimist? In this video we take a dive into Schopenhauer's main work, The World as Will and Representation, and we find out if he can be truly called a "pessimist"... and in what sense.

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NIETZSCHE: How the Real World Became a Myth (Twilight of the Idols)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:45:00 -0000

WATCH:
Nietzsche Explained: Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
Nietzsche Explained: On the Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI

This is one of the most dense chapters in Friedrich Nietzsche's entire works. It details in little more than 200 words, the entire history of metaphysics in the Western tradition, from the perspective of Nietzsche's philosophy of the Hinterwelt (the beyond-world, or metaphysics in general). Beginning with Plato, stopping by Christianity, Kant, and the positivists like Auguste Comte, and culminating in Nietzsche and Zarathustra, as represented in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

This video deals with a single chapter from Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Idols", one of his later works. In effect, it's a very concise summary of the entirety of the Genealogy of Morals, while much of the alluded-to "philosophy of the future" is explained in his other major work: Beyond Good and Evil.

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Self-help is dead. Read this instead.

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:22:30 -0000

Books mentioned:
▶ Gracián audiobook: https://amzn.to/458iCWb
▶ Gracián paperback: https://amzn.to/3MXpaAu
▶ Rilke audiobook: https://amzn.to/3Yc8lV1
▶ Rilke paperback: https://amzn.to/45rn9Tq
▶ Bonus: Rilke Selected Poems audiobook: https://amzn.to/4pf25a4

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

Thumbnail inspiration: https://youtu.be/92tVm7VSlic

GOETHE RECOMMENDATIONS:
▶ All-In One Dramatization (free w/ trial: Werther, Faust, & more): https://amzn.to/48tHcTu
▶ The Essential Goethe: https://amzn.to/4pmYur7
▶ The Sorrows of Young Werther: https://amzn.to/4pVbKmM
▶ Goethe: Life as a Work of Art by Rüdiger Safranski: https://amzn.to/3KvJf03
▶ Also as audiobook (free with trial): https://amzn.to/4a3jzlR
▶ Faust performance on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qaogjXLdPow
▶ Faust performance on DVD (careful to pick the right DVD option US/EU): https://amzn.to/3Mwwp21
▶ Conversations with Goethe by Eckermann: https://amzn.to/48XAp4m

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

At no cost to you, if you get an Audible Premium membership through the links posted here, I'll make a small commission. Thank you for supporting the channel!

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NIETZSCHE Explained: Beyond Good and Evil (part 1)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:00:00 -0000

Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most important works in Western philosophy. Written in 1886, it represented Nietzsche's attempt to elucidate ideas first written about in Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra). Unfortunately, the book is also very difficult and widely misunderstood. This video attempts to set the stage for a deeper understanding of this seminal work of German philosophy.
In this first part, we explore the significance of the title, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, and we introduce the concept of the "philosophical prejudice" which is the main theme of the work. Nietzsche believed "other philosophers" (all those who came before him; notably Descartes, Kant, Plato, Schopenhauer and the Stoics) suffered, unbeknownst to them, from hidden presuppositions. Nietzsche, the philosopher with the hammer, seeks to destroy these presuppositions and lead the charge in the creation of a new philosophy of the future.
In this part we mainly discuss Nietzsche's treatment of Descartes famous "cogito ergo sum", "I think, therefore I am" argument. In later parts we will discuss the Will to Power and other Nietzschean philosophical concepts.

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SCHOPENHAUER: The Art of Not Reading (6 Rules for Reading)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 13:37:30 -0000

Download the essay: https://weltgeist.tv/reading
Arthur Schopenhauer's famous essay "On Books and Reading" is actually more about NOT reading. Schopenhauer offers us six rules for reading books. Here is some reading advice from one of the greatest thinkers in history and philosophy... Enjoy.

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SCHOPENHAUER: 7 Tips to Become A Better Writer (Improve Your Style)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 13:15:00 -0000

DOWNLOAD THE ESSAY: http://weltgeist.tv/style
Please like and subscribe if you found this video helpful.

Schopenhauer is well-known for his clear and lucid writing style, a rare accomplishment in the field of philosophy, and even more rare in German philosophy. What is the secret to his style?

Thankfully, he has blessed us with an essay on exactly this topic. In this video we’re sharing the tips Schopenhauer wrote down for us in his essay “On Authorship and Style.”

First tip: Have something to say
Second tip: Keep it concise
Third tip: Don’t write for money
Fourth tip: Think before you write
Fifth tip: Choose a good title
Sixth tip: Form over matter
Seventh tip: Find your own voice

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Why Dostoevsky Hated Napoleon

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 12:52:30 -0000

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How Philosophy Kills You

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 12:30:00 -0000

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How Art Can Save You | Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 12:07:30 -0000

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
02:28 Apollo and Dionysus
08:41 The Chorus
16:27 A glimpse of horror
21:02 A spoonful of sugar
24:05 The death of tragedy
26:05 Euripides
34:14 Socrates
41:03 Richard Wagner
49:03 Beyond the Birth of Tragedy
55:02 Conclusion

The Birth of Tragedy is Nietzsche’s first major work. It immediately split public opinion in half: hated by the academic world, embraced by the artistic world.

Heavily drawing on the influence of Arthur Schopenhauer, it features the twin concepts of the Apollonian and Dionysian as creative drives in the human spirit. Apollonian art representing individuality, restraint, delineation; plastic arts, as opposed to the Dionysian; exuberant, formless, ecstasy, emotion; musical arts.

Both of these creative forces reach an equilibrium in Greek tragedy. This work deals with how Greek tragedy came to be (borne from the Greek chorus), how tragedy died (featuring also one of Nietzsche’s earliest critiques of Socrates) and how tragedy can be reborn (through the Gesamtkunstwerk of Richard Wagner.)

Although this work put Nietzsche on the map, he would later disavow much of its ideas while saving others. In particular, he would become disillusioned with Wagner’s art and turn against his former idol Schopenhauer. The metaphysics underpinning the entire work would also be discarded.

He revisioned his ideas on the nature of (Greek) pessimism and the role of art in a culture. Republished fourteen years after the original with a new foreword which includes a self-criticism, the work attained a unique place in Nietzsche’s larger body of work and philosophy.

Still, the Birth of Tragedy stands as an influential work, if not in philosophy, definitely in art history and aesthetics.

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How to Become a Monster | Nietzsche

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 11:45:00 -0000

To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/Weltgeist/ . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
03:10 Nietzsche the psychologist
09:40 Nietzsche the Greek
25:01 Into the abyss
30:44 A psychology of the future
42:23 Nietzsche and cruelty
52:50 Zarathustra speaks

"He who fights monsters, should see to it that he doesn't become a monster himself. And if you stare long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

This is one of most famous yet mysterious quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche. What does it mean? In this video, we try to offer an exposition of this aphorism, according to Nietzsche's own dictum that an aphorism is not understood at first reading, but requires an "art of exposition."

Nietzsche claims that he is the only psychologist so far who has dared to venture into the depths of the human soul. Western society being so strongly influenced by Platonism and Christianity that we cannot look beyond our naive belief in opposites: good versus evil, truth vs lie, egoism versus altruism.

He harkens back to a pre-Platonic view of looking at the world, in the manner of the Homeric Greeks, before Plato and his "Egyptianism" sought to capture Being in neat concepts (ideas) instead preferring a Heraclitean way of looking at things: reality and nature being in an eternal flux of Becoming.

Such a worldview would go Beyond Good and Evil and beyond the naive belief in antinomies, and would pave the way for a new psychology of the depths, a psychology that reckons honestly with the dark side within the human soul rather than explaining it away as the result of ignorance or an imperfect representation of some Platonic Ideal, a corrupt copy of a copy of "the Good."

No, says Nietzsche, the monster at bottom of many a human soul must be confronted honestly, and reckoned with as part of human nature. Only then will we be able to make way for the coming of the Superman.

As Zarathustra says, mankind needs to become more evil.

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NIETZSCHE: Eternal Recurrence Is Real (in the Will to Power Notes)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 11:22:30 -0000

Eternalised's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb79IM0UcJM

If we read the book the Will to Power, which is really a compilation of notes, released after Nietzsche’s death, and compiled by his sister, a different picture of the Eternal Recurrence comes to light. We see an attempt by Nietzsche to offer a kind of materialist framework in which the Eternal Recurrence is not merely a thought-experiment, but an actual state of affairs.

The problem is, that this compilation of notes is not generally viewed as a canonical work by Nietzsche. That is to say, scholars disagree on whether or not the ideas in this work truly represent Nietzsche’s own views. There is considerable debate as to the influence of his sister in the compilation of these notes. Did she make changes? Did she make things up? Did she add a word or sentence here and there? For the purposes of this video, we will not concern ourselves with these questions, but as we go on, it’s important to keep this in mind.

The entire final chapter of The Will to Power is devoted to the Eternal Recurrence. 14 notes in total deal with the subject. They present a radically different picture of the Eternal Recurrence than we saw in Nietzsche’s earlier writings.

We see how the concept of the Eternal Recurrence has become more than a thought experiment, as it was first formulated in The Joyful Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

If we take this conception of the universe as a fact, it follows that the universe was not created, but that it has always existed. It implies time is not linear, but cyclical.

The cyclical nature of time is found in other systems of thought, notably in Eastern religion, but also in Norse mythology and Greek philosophy – notably with the Pythagoreans. In fact, the conception of time as linear has only really been found in one religion: the Judeo-Christian one which has since come to dominate Western thought.

Because of this, Nietzsche finds with his new conception of the Eternal Recurrence another breaking point with Christian values. By asserting the cyclical nature of time as an actual reality instead of a thought experiment, he can deliver another blow to the Christian worldview, which fits into his greater project of bringing about a transvaluation of values.

The point is that Nietzsche has found a physical basis, not just a theoretical or moral basis, to assign a positive value to the material world.

If everything repeats itself and comes back again for all eternity, then this present moment, this material world of ours, becomes of great importance. Every moment is eternal. Every single experience of your life is now part of the absolute, part of a perpetual cycle.

Our life is not just “a lightning flash between two eternities”, as Schopenhauer puts it, but an everlasting light.

This is the most radical formulation of a life-affirming philosophy. By promoting the Eternal Recurrence from a theoretical thought-experiment to an actual, physical reality, Nietzsche seeks to affirm life in a very true and real sense. The Eternal Recurrence becomes a more serious matter. It’s the difference between living your life as if something was true, versus living your life knowing something is true.

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Nietzsche: Why Arguing is for Weak People

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 11:00:00 -0000

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Why Love is about POWER | Nietzsche

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 10:37:30 -0000

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

Mentioned in the video:
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

In the Joyful Science, Nietzsche notes his surprise in how our culture came to regard love as a sweet, romantic, selfless, self-sacrificial thing. For Nietzsche, true love is actually the opposite of these things: it's about desire, about wanting something for yourself, about not being willing to share, about willing to compete with rivals and to wish for them nothing, and for yourself, everything.

He even goes so far as to say that love and greed might be the same psychological impulse, just under a different name.

But then how did love come to be associated with selflessness? The answer is to be found in the slave revolt in morals: the powerless, deprived as they were of the pleasures of love, invented an imaginary victory over the powerful: they transvaluated the value of love, redefined it to mean general love of mankind (agape in the Ancient Greek sense) so that now anyone could enjoy the pleasures of love, not just the happy few. Through a long march through our culture (Nietzsche always maintained the slave revolt in morals was a resounding success) the slaves succeeded in taking love, originally conceived as Eros, a violent, lust-filled affair with a tinge of violence in it (just think of jealousy as one of the strongest human emotions) and turned it into Agape, a kind of neutered, general, abstract "love of mankind."

The Western, Romantic conception of love is the history for a forgetting of the original meaning of love, and the heart of darkness within it, the human, all-too-human base impulses that rule our existence: the desire for power, domination, competition.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: Twilight of the Idols - Morality Against Nature (pt. 3)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 10:15:00 -0000

Twilight of the Idols PART 1: https://youtu.be/5r2IflhebzE
Twilight of the Idols PART 2: https://youtu.be/nFbgzoegVNA

In the previous part of this series on Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols, we looked at the concept of degeneracy or decadence and what that means on a metaphysical level. In this part, we will explore decadence through a moral lens – we will look at a tiny little chapter in Twilight of the Idols entitled “Morality as Anti-Nature.”

There are more parts coming out. If you want to be notified when these are released, please consider subscribing to the channel and clicking the Bell button.

Nietzsche will argue that a morality is defined by how it teaches us to deal with these passions. Nietzsche notes that nearly every morality thus far formulated, advocates the quelling of passion.

“…owing to the stupidity inherent in passion, men waged war against passion itself: men pledged themselves to annihilate it,—all ancient moral-mongers were unanimous on this point, "il faut tuer les passions."”

It’s not hard to come up with examples. The idea that impulsive emotion is bad, that unbridled lust or greed are problematic, that violent anger is rarely justified – these are all ideas that have become so commonplace they are barely questioned. Every single system of morality, from Stoicism to Buddhism to Kantian ethics – preaches either the control or even the annihilation of emotions.

And of course, Nietzsche singles out one system for attack: Christianity. In particular, he cites the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus says, with regards to sexuality: “if thy eye offend thee, pluck it out.”

This is the prototypical example of a morality that seeks to annihilate passion and emotion.

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Why You Can’t Make Friends | Schopenhauer

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 09:52:30 -0000

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Schopenhauer on being alone and how to deal with society:
▶ https://youtu.be/eSbaqqDfGxU

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The hedgehog dilemma is a metaphor for the difficulty of human relationships.

(Schopenhauer’s original is about porcupines, not hedgehogs; Freud seems to have popularised hedgehogs when paraphrasing Schopenhauer in his own works.)

On a cold winter’s day, two hedgehogs cuddle close together for warm. But soon their spikes hurt the other. So they separate again. But then the cold forces them back together, and of course they end up hurting each other again.

So the hedgehogs ultimately find an equilibrium: far enough to not be hurt by spikes, close enough to be somewhat warm. A compromise that leaves them unsatisfied, but it’s better than nothing.

Schopenhauer argues that it’s better to be alone, to be your own source of warmth. While also realising that such is not possible for the vast majority of people: humans are social animals. So he advises us to ‘keep our distance’ (he even uses the English expression.)

The video goes a step further by thinking about a possible Nietzschean perspective: seeking intimacy and friendship, knowing full well that hurt might result.
We can view the hedgehog’s dilemma as something more than a simple metaphor for human relationships. It’s a litmus test on how a person views life: full of suffering yes, but does that mean we should run from it, or embrace it? In this way it lays bare the biggest difference between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

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SCHOPENHAUER Explained: Aesthetics of Music and Nature (pt. 3)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 09:30:00 -0000

In the third and final part of our series on the core philosophy of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, we explore his theory of aesthetics. We highly recommend you watch the previous videos in this series, on both his metaphysics and ethics, before watching this one.
Schopenhauer has sometimes been called "the artists' philosopher" because of his lasting influence on art. Art, for Schopenhauer, is a way for us to forget our suffering, even for only a short time. And music was the most perfect means to do so. Lots of artists took Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory to heart and felt emboldened in the pursuit of their craft as a result. We also touch upon his rediscovery of the Platonic Ideas.

Watch: SCHOPENHAUER Explained: Metaphysics of the Will:
https://youtu.be/i87hX_uznEQ
Watch: SCHOPENHAUER Explained: Ethics of Compassion (pt. 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAeKylqj-Xg

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Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Religion - Buddhism and Hinduism (pt. 3)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 09:07:30 -0000

WATCH:
Pt. 1: https://youtu.be/f9EVlUJyrQg
Pt. 2: https://youtu.be/XAXj06hZe5I

It is pretty well-known that Schopenhauer greatly admired both Buddhism and Hinduism. It’s said he read the Upanishads every night before bed, and at the end of his life he even taught himself Sanskrit. Let’s take a closer look at his thought on these Eastern religions.

Recall how in the previous parts we saw how Schopenhauer calls religions pessimistic or optimistic depending on how they interpret the nature of the material world. According to this classification, Judaism was optimistic while Christianity was pessimistic.

Buddhism and Hinduism of course, are both pessimistic with regards to the material world.

The Buddhistic acknowledgement that life is suffering, that earthly happiness cannot be found, the strict ascetic lifestyle of Buddhists and Brahmans, these factors are, in Schopenhauer’s lexicon, signs of a pessimistic religion: a religion that regards with contempt the material world and seeks to turn away from it through fasting, meditation, and abstinence.

The question is, where does this pessimism come from? Ultimately, the pessimistic outlook must stem from an epistemic scepticism regarding the material world. What this means is that there must be a conviction that the material world is not the world of supreme importance, that something exists beyond mere matter, that the material world is an illusion.

We see how Buddhism and Brahmanism (or Hinduism) are in fundamental agreement (even if there are some particular differences) with Schopenhauer’s metaphysical as well as moral teachings. While New Testament Christianity is certainly in agreement with Schopenhauer’s moral teachings, it is lacking on the metaphysical front. Buddhism and Hinduism, on the other hand, score well on both fronts. For this reason, Schopenhauer ranks the Eastern religions as the most perfect expressions of truth to be found in religion.

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Nietzsche EXPLAINED: The Genealogy of Morals - Bad Conscience, Cruelty, Religion (pt. 3)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 08:45:00 -0000

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaDxR7zOymI
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud_3lkq_tAk

In the third video in our series on The Genealogy of Morals, we see Nietzsche dive deep into prehistory towards the creation of a morality of custom which leads to man's instinct for cruelty being repressed, and finally, turn inwards.
The bad conscience, in this analysis of Nietzsche, is not "the voice of God" as Kant and Christianity claim. Rather, the bad conscience is the paradoxical self-torture and self-pleasure that results from a drive for cruelty which cannot be directed externally and therefore must wreck havoc internally.
This is a notoriously difficult essay and it has been somewhat overlooked as a result. With this video, we hope to do it justice.

The fourth, and final part, is coming soon. Please subscribe if you want to be notified when it's up.

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Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Religion - Why Religion Must PRETEND to Be Literally True (pt. 1)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 08:22:30 -0000

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This Painting Almost Made Dostoevsky Atheist

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 08:00:00 -0000

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OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

When Dostoevsky was on the run from creditors, he and his wife arrived in the Swiss city of Basel. There they visited the local art museum and saw one of Hans Holbein's most famous masterpieces: The Dead Body of Christ in the Tomb.

According to Anna, Dostoevsky's wife, her husband was completely transfixed upon viewing this painting. He stared at it for hours, even going so far as finding chairs in the museum to sit in front of it.

The painting would play a role in Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, where the titular character pronounces that a painting like this might cause a man to lose his faith.

This video explores why that is. Dostoevsky grew up in the Russian Orthodox Church, and iconographically, this Church prefers to show Christ as a judge and ruler of mankind, the so-called Christos Pantokrator motif. Christ in his capacity as judge, sometimes literally during the Last Judgment, or other times sitting next to God the Father.

Even though Christian dogma holds that Christ was both fully human and fully divine, it's a curious feature of the human psyche that we find Christ-as-God more palatable to our sensibilities than Christ-as-man, because to fully think through this dogma leads us to some uncomfortable ideas. Such as: the fact that Christ, in his capacity as man, was tortured and died a brutal death.

Most Christian artworks featuring the death and torture of Christ try to beautify him. Think for example of the quiet grandeur of Zurbaran or Velazquez, or the epic character of a Rubens. But Holbein chose such strict realism that an urban legend arose he literally fished up a dead body from the Rhine river to more accurately depict a body in an advanced state of decomposition.

This is Death, purely and honestly, without any artistic flourish. Just a confrontation with how the disciples must've seen Jesus too. Beaten and bruised.

Dostoevsky says the painting is so powerful in its honesty that you really start to question the core Christian idea: could a body that looked like this, ever beat death? In The Idiot, the same questions pops up, but from the perspective of the disciples. They must've faced this same question. They didn't know that Christ would rise, how would they have felt, confronted with death like this, from their beloved master?

This is where Nietzsche pops in: Nietzsche argues that the disciples invented and inverted modern Christianity because they had this crisis of faith, spurred on by watching their leader be beaten and humiliated, and invented the Christian story of the resurrection in order to take revenge on the enemies of Jesus. Dostoevsky, of course, disagrees. He tackled his crisis of faith in another way: by radically affirming Christ, even if truth itself is against him.

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Reacting to Pewdiepie's review of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 07:37:30 -0000

WATCH: Nietzsche Explained: Beyond Good and Evil (all parts)
https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk

Pewdiepie's original (full) video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7u-xAWWyK4

A while ago, famous YouTuber Pewdiepie reviewed Friedrich Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil" as part of the book-club segment of his channel. His reaction to Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil was common: just like Pewdiepie himself, many people feel like this book is too difficult for them. In this video we tackle a few of the stumbling blocks encountered by Pewdiepie. If you want to read Beyond Good and Evil yourself, we highly recommend you check out own three-part series on this amazing work of philosophy.

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SCHOPENHAUER Explained: Ethics of Compassion (pt. 2)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 07:15:00 -0000

In the second instalment in our series on German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, we discuss his ethics. In the first video we saw how Schopenhauer thinks of the world, but the question now arises: what do we DO with that knowledge? This video explores Schopenhauer's ethics and focuses on two recommendations: compassion and asceticism. We also introduce the concept of "agape", or divine love. Schopenhauer's intense focus on the individual, could be seen in some ways as a precursor to the existentialism movement later in philosophy. The next part in this series will deal with the most famous aspect of Schopenhauer's philosophy: his aesthetics. If you don't want to miss, kindly subscribe to the channel.

P.S.: It's highly recommended you check out the first video in this series in order to understand this one.
Watch: SCHOPENHAUER Explained: Metaphysics of the Will:
https://youtu.be/i87hX_uznEQ

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So you want to read Kant

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 06:52:30 -0000

In this video we go over an often-asked question. You want to read Kant, but you don't know where to start. We offer a some guidelines. We don't think it's wise to jump into the Critique of Pure Reason without either a broad background in philosophy in general, and without some knowledge of Kant in particular. Which is why we recommend Kant's introductory work to his metaphysics: the Prolegomena. If you can master the Critique of Pure Reason: congratulations! Then the Critique of Practical Reason as well as the Critique of Judgment shouldn't be any problem.

Recommended reading and timestamps:

Philosophy textbook (general introduction): https://amzn.to/2N6f9SS
Prolegomena: https://amzn.to/37nGfMm
Critique of Pure Reason: https://amzn.to/3dnsWPF
All Three Critiques (Pure Reason, Practical Reason, Judgment): https://amzn.to/3aujWGN

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:32 Step 1: Read a college textbook on philosophy
01:51 Step 2: Read the Prolegomena
02:40 Step 3: Read the Critique of Pure Reason

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Our culture is sick. Here's why.

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 06:30:00 -0000

Head to https://squarespace.com/weltgeist to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code WELTGEIST

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche spends the entire final third of the book answering a single question: what is the meaning of ascetic ideals?

The ascetic ideal in Nietzsche's philosophy is the form that nihilism takes, it is that which promotes a movement away from the world, from the body, from the flesh, from our humanity. He sees this principle at work in every realm of human endeavor, from art to religion to philosophy and even modern science.

In this video we provide an overview of how the ascetic ideal - nihilism - finds its way into the artistic world through Wagner's Parsifal, into the religious domain through Christianity, in philosophy with Schopenhauer, and finally how even modern science, through Darwin and Copernicus and the like, provides a feeding ground for nihilism.

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Why David Lynch Loved Franz Kafka

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 06:07:30 -0000

In honor of one of the greatest.

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OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

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Decoding Schopenhauer's Metaphysics by Bernardo Kastrup (Book Review)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 05:45:00 -0000

BUY THE BOOK: https://amzn.to/2Pqa092
WATCH Schopenhauer Explained: https://youtu.be/f-djIdl8WO4

Bernardo Kastrup is a Dutch philosopher who counts among the few contemporary philosophers who subscribe to a kind of metaphysical idealism, the notion that reality is essentially mental. He has a PhD in philosophy as well as a PhD in computer engineering.

In his book, Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics Decoded, he attempts to make a case for Schopenhauer’s metaphysical system. As he explains in the introduction, Schopenhauer’s legacy and influence has mostly been felt in the fields of ethics and aesthetics, and not so much in the field of metaphysics. He calls this “tragic”, and I tend to agree.

This book, then, is meant as an appreciation as well as an elucidation of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics. At 141 pages it’s a quick read. And it may be too quick of a read for people who aren’t familiar with Schopenhauer at all, and think this book serves as a good introduction. On the other hand, this book is very readable once you have a basic understanding of Schopenhauer’s system. It’s not like you need to plough through the 1000+ pages of the World as Will and Representation first. (Although of course, it would help.)

If you are a long-time viewer of the channel, and you have watched our series on The World as Will and Representation, you’re good to go. The book is cheap and short and insightful, and I recommend you pick it up.

BUY THE BOOK: https://amzn.to/2Pqa092

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(Affiliate disclosure: If you choose to buy the book via the above link, at no cost to you, I get a small commission. It's a great way to support the channel while also getting a high quality work of philosophy.)

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Why Your 20s Will Suck | Schopenhauer

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 05:22:30 -0000

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OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

Arthur Schopenhauer, in his essay "Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life," reflects on the fleeting nature of time and the stages of human life, using the metaphor of the solar system’s planets to illustrate each phase. He argues that life passes quickly, often unnoticed until old age, when we realize its brevity. Schopenhauer suggests that awareness of time’s flow can help us appreciate the moment and navigate life’s challenges with wisdom.

Childhood (Mercury): Represented by Mercury, childhood is a blissful, rapid-moving phase under the influence of the clever and eloquent Hermes. Free from the "Will to Life" (Schopenhauer’s concept of an innate drive), children live in pure cognition, unburdened by desire, assuming good parenting shields them from suffering.

Puberty/Youth (Venus): Venus, the goddess of love, governs this stage starting around age 20. The sexual drive awakens, dominating and distracting individuals from higher pursuits like philosophy. This "devil" fosters a "moderate madness," driving social behavior and conflict as individual differences emerge.

Adulthood (Mars, Planetoids): At 30, Mars rules with strength and defiance. Intellectual capacity peaks, though sexual distraction persists. By 40, the four planetoids (Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, Juno) symbolize a stabilizing phase—accumulating wealth, knowledge, and domestic order.

Middle Age (Jupiter): At 50, Jupiter, king of the gods, reigns. This is the peak of genius, where experience and authority balance declining raw intellect, free from youthful distractions. It’s a time of independence and mastery.

Old Age (Saturn, Uranus): At 60, Saturn, the god of time, brings awareness of mortality, slowing life with a heavy, lead-like quality. By Uranus (death), we transition from earthly to heavenly spheres. Schopenhauer sees death not as an end but a return of the Will, hinting at a cycle tied to life’s beginning.

Schopenhauer concludes with a poetic lament about Neptune’s naming (preferring Eros to link love and death) and muses on death as a "reservoir of life," echoing ancient myths. His essay, written in old age, blends pragmatic advice—like prioritizing health—with philosophical depth, offering a guide to life’s inevitable highs and lows.
This work, rich in metaphor and wisdom, serves as both a map and mirror for navigating existence, urging us to face life’s transient beauty and struggles with awareness and resilience.

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4 Books You MUST Read According to Schopenhauer

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 05:00:00 -0000

Deep within an essay On the Art of Thinking for Oneself, Schopenhauer has four novels to recommend his readers. Of course, they are each in a different language... He also gives us objective, measurable standards to judge the artistic merit of a novel. Schopenhauer looks at how much a novel deals with the inner life -- the more it deals with the inner life of the protagonist, the more artistic a novel becomes because it's the inner world that excites our interest - not the outer world of representation.

Schopenhauer's recommended reading list:

1) Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne (https://amzn.to/3toq2zW)
2) Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (https://amzn.to/36EeKxK)
3) Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (https://amzn.to/3pPkGvw)
4) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (https://amzn.to/3aBNKQO)

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Why Isn't He Screaming?

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 04:37:30 -0000

Don't miss out on Blinkist's exclusive offer: Get an unprecedented 60% off valid only until November 21st! https://bit.ly/WeltgeistBlinkist

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WATCH:
▶ Ancient Greece Was a Lot More Violent Than You Think. Here’s Why. https://youtu.be/a4cbNXGOa24

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

Music:
"Awkward Meeting"
"George Street Shuffle"
"Minima"
by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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7 Books Recommended By Nietzsche and Schopenhauer

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 04:15:00 -0000

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BOOKS MENTIONED:
Tristram Shandy: https://amzn.to/4j1JEDO
Conversations with Goethe: https://amzn.to/4a7oJLl
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship: https://amzn.to/4h30DE4
The Red and the Black: https://amzn.to/3DE0Wqu
The Charterhouse of Parma: https://amzn.to/402Nq7g
Notes from the Underground: https://amzn.to/407lr6r
Julie, or the New Héloïse: https://amzn.to/3DJ2gZb
Don Quixote: https://amzn.to/4a87lq8
War and Peace: https://amzn.to/401IZJY

Thanks for supporting the channel!

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Happy New Year
00:18 Tristram Shandy
03:13 Conversations with Goethe
06:04 Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
07:55 The Red and the Black
09:50 Julie, or the New Héloïse
12:07 Don Quixote
14:22 War and Peace

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

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Why Nietzsche Loved the Odyssey

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 03:52:30 -0000

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Jokes from the Most Pessimistic Philosopher - Schopenhauer

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 03:30:00 -0000

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SCHOPENHAUER Explained: Metaphysics of the Will (pt. 1)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 03:07:30 -0000

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What Schopenhauer Liked (and Disliked) About STOICISM

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 02:45:00 -0000

The World as Will and Representation, masterpiece of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, doubles as a great introduction to the Stoic philosophy. Both in volume I and in volume II, we are treated to a fair summary of the entire philosophical movement of Stoicism with plenty of (untranslated Latin and Greek) quotes from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, and other notable Stoics. Schopenhauer admired the rationality of Stoicism, but ultimately had to discard the system because of one fatal flaw which we'll cover in this video.

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SCHOPENHAUER: How To Be Happy - Money and Greed (pt. 3)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 02:22:30 -0000

Let’s talk about money. Money and property are the subject of the third chapter in Schopenhauer’s manual for the good life, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life.

As we saw in the previous part in this series, Schopenhauer makes it clear that money, by itself, is not enough to make someone happy. True happiness can only come from within, by having good health and developing your intellect and your talents.

However, there’s an obvious point to be made here: in order to develop your talents, or enjoy art, or read philosophy, you need free time. And in order to have free time, you need money.

Money, for Schopenhauer, is simply the means with which you buy time. Money, by itself, is never the goal. But Schopenhauer isn’t a dreamer either. He won’t tell you that you can be happy as a starving artist, living on the street, so long as you’re chasing your passion.

If you’re lucky, you are born into a wealthy family. If you’re like most of us, you’re not so lucky, and you need to work to earn money.

But having to work for money is not the biggest obstacle to a happy life. The real problem, is greed.

“Riches, one may say, are like sea-water; the more you drink the thirstier you become…”

In your quest for money and wealth, there is constant pressure on you to limit your desires. Money has a tendency to take hold of someone. People want more money than they need – it becomes an addiction.

Before you know it, the money you earn is not simply your ticket to freedom. You want a big house, a fancy car, a huge pool. Champagne and oysters. The trick is to keep your desires low and your money high. If you allow yourself to get trapped into keeping up with the Joneses, your money becomes useless because you spend everything you make.

The goal of money is to be free, not become a slave to your possessions or luxurious lifestyle.

Again we find Schopenhauer in agreement with the Stoics, and the Greeks in general.

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Why Schopenhauer Believed in MAGIC (The World as Will)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 02:00:00 -0000

WATCH: SCHOPENHAUER Explained: The World as Will and Representation (ALL PARTS)
https://youtu.be/f-djIdl8WO4

Arthur Schopenhauer believed in magic. In an essay called "On the Will in Nature" Schopenhauer tells us, without a hint of irony, he believes in the magical abilities of some humans. How can such a smart and accomplished person fall for the act of a showman illusionist? This has puzzled readers for centuries. Yet, in Schopenhauer's system as explained in The World as Will and Representation, there is room for magic. This video aims to show exactly how.

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Why Nietzsche Loved Thucydides

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 01:37:30 -0000

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WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA

Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general. He lived in the 5th century BC at a time when Sparta and Athens went to war. He wrote down an account of this war in the work entitled History of the Peloponnesian War.

Not only is this work considered to be one of the first scholarly works of history, it also cemented Thucydides as the father of scientific history.

The History is marked by an objective, detached, some may say cold, style. Thucydides wanted to differentiate himself from Herodotus, the other great historian of Antiquity, whom he accused of making up stories or embellishing his history. Thucydides wanted to be as objective as possible in his assessment and carefully selected sources and eyewitness accounts with a critical mindset.

These elements might give an early hint as to why Nietzsche admired Thucydides. His praise for the Athenian historian is a consistent feature in his work, from Daybreak to Twilight of the Idols, written 7 years apart. Scholars have noted that throughout Nietzsche’s works, amid all the praise, not a single critical note is raised against him.

In this video we’ll take a deeper look at this praise. We’ll go over Nietzsche’s assessment of Thucydides as it appears in Daybreak and Twilight of the Idols and analyse the relationship between the two through two famous passages in the History of the Peloponnesian War: the so-called Melian Dialogue and the funeral oration of Pericles.

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Nietzsche's Disturbing Warning About ChatGPT and A.I.

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 01:15:00 -0000

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Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Religion: Christianity vs Buddhism and Hinduism (all parts)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:52:30 -0000

You may not realize it, but hidden in his collection of essays, Arthur Schopenhauer has worked out a more or less systematic philosophy of religion. This is the first part in a series of videos that will cover Schopenhauer’s unique outlook on religion. If you want to be notified when the other parts come out, please consider subscribing and clicking the bell button.

Schopenhauer’s main gripe with religion is with the distinction they make between meaning in sensu proprio versus in sensu allegorico.

“Sensu proprio” is the Latin term he uses which basically means “in a literal sense.” Sensu allegorico, of course, means “in an allegorical sense.”

What happens with religion, is they present some kind of dogma, which might be true in an allegorical sense, but they have to pretend to mean it in a literal sense. Religion cannot pretend its main tenets are merely allegorical because doing so would mean to undermine their own credibility.

In the second part, we will zoom in on Schopenhauer’s criticism and evaluation of Christianity and the theological problem of reconciling the Old with the New Testament.

The main religious text in Christianity, the Bible, is composed of the Old and the New Testament. The problem is that Schopenhauer sees an optimistic worldview in the Old and a pessimistic worldview in the New Testament.

It is pretty well-known that Schopenhauer greatly admired both Buddhism and Hinduism. It’s said he read the Upanishads every night before bed, and at the end of his life he even taught himself Sanskrit. Let’s take a closer look at his thought on these Eastern religions.

Recall how in the previous parts we saw how Schopenhauer calls religions pessimistic or optimistic depending on how they interpret the nature of the material world. According to this classification, Judaism was optimistic while Christianity was pessimistic.

Buddhism and Hinduism of course, are both pessimistic with regards to the material world.

The Buddhistic acknowledgement that life is suffering, that earthly happiness cannot be found, the strict ascetic lifestyle of Buddhists and Brahmans, these factors are, in Schopenhauer’s lexicon, signs of a pessimistic religion: a religion that regards with contempt the material world and seeks to turn away from it through fasting, meditation, and abstinence.

The question is, where does this pessimism come from? Ultimately, the pessimistic outlook must stem from an epistemic scepticism regarding the material world. What this means is that there must be a conviction that the material world is not the world of supreme importance, that something exists beyond mere matter, that the material world is an illusion.

We see how Buddhism and Brahmanism (or Hinduism) are in fundamental agreement (even if there are some particular differences) with Schopenhauer’s metaphysical as well as moral teachings. While New Testament Christianity is certainly in agreement with Schopenhauer’s moral teachings, it is lacking on the metaphysical front. Buddhism and Hinduism, on the other hand, score well on both fronts. For this reason, Schopenhauer ranks the Eastern religions as the most perfect expressions of truth to be found in religion.

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SCHOPENHAUER: How To Be Happy - Developing Your Inner Life (pt. 2)

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:30:00 -0000

Chapter two in Schopenhauer’s practical handbook on the good life, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, is entitled “What a man is.”

While Schopenhauer admits that there are two other sources of happiness, namely in possessions and in reputation or fame, he argues that only in this category can you find lasting happiness.

You might be surprised to hear that Schopenhauer, the famous pessimist, is such a proponent of a cheerful character. It’s even more important than intellect or physical health…

Of course, you could say that a cheerful disposition is the result of happiness, not the cause of it. Not necessarily so for Schopenhauer. While we should always welcome a merry feeling when it arrives, “for [it] never comes inopportunely,” its arrival is ultimately largely out of our control. We should enjoy it when it’s here but learn to be content without it.

We can make our lives better, however, if we work on the conditions that make it easier for cheer and joy to arrive on our doorstep.

Schopenhauer gives us a quick list of recommendations, such as the need for daily exercise in the open air, cold baths, the avoidance of stress and negative emotions.

Pain and boredom.

The human experience is characterized by a constant struggle of avoiding both pain and boredom, but this is a fool’s errand, because,

“in the degree in which we are fortunate enough to get away from the one, we approach the other. Life presents, in fact, a more or less violent oscillation between the two.”

It’s obvious how we can win the battle against the first enemy, pain. This is an objective condition. Good health, and also enough money and property to live comfortably. Chances are, if you are watching this YouTube video, your problem, in Schopenhauer’s terms, is not pain, but boredom.

Boredom is a subjective state of mind. Therefore, the cure for boredom is found within yourself. The cure for boredom is the development of the intellect – study!

Nothing pleasures the mind so much as the contemplation of ideas. To the great mind, ideas never run out and so the pleasure gained from them is infinite. And because the pleasures of the intellect are subjective, even the most boring of objective circumstances, for example, waiting in line, become bearable for the intellectually gifted person.

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Reading NIETZSCHE: Where to Start?

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 18:01:15 -0000

Download the cheat sheet: http://weltgeist.tv/nietzsche
"I want to read Nietzsche, where do I start?" is a question that often comes up. Nietzsche's philosophy is notoriously difficult to interpret and Nietzsche was a prolific writer with a dozen books to his name. If one wants the best possible understanding, where does one start? In what order should you read his books? In this video, we make a few suggestions. Start with Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, or The Genealogy of Morals? What about Twilight of the Idols? Daybreak? Secondary literature? In this video we cover it all.
Of course, this is just some advice. There will be disagreement on this order, and if there should be an "order" at all. But that's okay.

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Why Nietzsche Loved the Renaissance

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 17:32:30 -0000

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WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As
▶ Why Nietzsche Loved Thucydides: https://youtu.be/XI2dVkHoG7Q

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA

This aim, we could say the end-goal of his philosophy, was the so-called transvaluation of values. Specifically, of course, the transvaluation of Christian values.

As the title of the book The Antichrist makes clear, Nietzsche sought a complete reversal of Christian morality. In order to establish such a new moral order, he wanted to overturn, or transvaluate, all existing valuations.

In other words, if Nietzsche is against Christianity, then what is he for? Well, logically, he is for whatever runs counter to Christianity.

Which historical periods can we turn to for inspiration for such an anti-Christian world order? Well obviously the period before Christianity, specifically pre-Socratic Greece. But also the Renaissance. The period in history that positioned itself opposite of the long, Christian Middle Ages, and drew heavy inspiration from pre-Christian antiquity.

In Nietzsche’s estimation, the Renaissance was an attack on Christianity, and a successful one at that.

In the Renaissance, Nietzsche found a complete reversal of Christian values.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: The Genealogy of Morals - Good and Evil, Good and Bad (pt. 2)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 17:03:45 -0000

WATCH the previous part here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaDxR7zOymI

This second video tackles the first essay of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. Much of it will sound familiar to those who have read Beyond Good and Evil or Daybreak. Nietzsche makes a historical-genealogical (even linguistic) case for the good/bad and good/evil dichotomy.

The next part will tackle free will, the sovereign individual, guilt, and conscience. Subscribe if you want to be notified when these are released.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: The Antichrist (Full Analysis)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 16:35:00 -0000

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WATCH:
Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk

This is our full series on Friedrich Nietzsche's The Antichrist. In this first part we will briefly introduce the work and go over some necessary context. In following parts, we will do a deep dive analysis.

As always, we begin with the title. The original German, Der Antichrist, actually has two meanings in English. It can literally mean “the Antichrist”, referring to the character in the Bible that is predicted to come to Earth in the end times.

But it can also simply mean “Anti-christian”.

Nietzsche is obviously being provocative by engaging in this double entendre, which is also why most English translations decide on “The Antichrist” as the title. Although, it must be noted, Nietzsche never uses the term “Antichrist” in the book to refer to the biblical character. He only ever uses the term to mean “Anti-Christian.”

The title of this work is also less mysterious than, let’s say, Daybreak, Twilight of the Idols, and of course, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It’s obvious what Nietzsche will attempt in this work: a sustained critique of the Christian worldview and morality.

The Antichrist was actually the first instalment in a planned four-volume work, which Nietzsche could never complete due to his mental collapse. The work was to be entitled:

The Will to Power: A Transvaluation of All Values

And the four volumes making up the work would be:

1. The Antichrist: an Attempt at a Criticism of Christianity.
2. The Free Spirit: a Criticism of Philosophy as a Nihilistic Movement
3. The Immoralist: a Criticism of Morality, the Most Fatal Form of Ignorance
4. Dionysus: the Philosophy of Eternal Recurrence.

As it stands, however, only the first volume, the Antichrist, was released as intended by Nietzsche. There have been attempts to reconstruct Nietzsche’s original vision of this great work but this is controversial. This reconstruction is known as The Will to Power and was heavily edited by Nietzsche’s sister. Because of this, and because Nietzsche never intended these notes for publication in the first place, this reconstruction is not generally considered to be canonical.

But back to the Antichrist. This work was written in 1888, which makes this book, together with the autobiography Ecce Homo, Nietzsche’s final publication before his descent into madness. Just like with Twilight of the Idols, this means that the book is of a very radical nature. The late Nietzsche pulls no punches in his philosophical writings. He wants to hit hard and provoke his audience. We will see exactly how as this series continues.

Much of what we will cover in this series, will sound familiar to long-time viewers of the channel. We will talk about décadence, the Will to Power, master and slave morality, and other Nietzschean concepts that were covered in other videos.

In the next part, we will go over the notion of pity and why Nietzsche thought that pity was one of the most harmful elements of Christianity.

In earlier works, Nietzsche already spoke out against pity, or compassion. For example, in a paragraph of The Joyful Science, Nietzsche laments how pity leads us away from our own path and our individuality: pity as a distraction.

Nietzsche’s demonization of pity or compassion is an obvious attack on Schopenhauer’s philosophy, which held that compassion is the root of all morality. In fact, he is probably directly alluding to Schopenhauer in the above passage. And it is true, that for Schopenhauer, supreme goodness consists in complete compassion for other people and animals, so much so, that the perfectly good person should forget his own individuality altogether!

This is absolutely appalling to Nietzsche. In this formulati

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Why Jesus Isn't a Hero | Nietzsche

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 16:06:15 -0000

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WATCH:
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
01:24 The psychology of the Saviour
05:48 Ernest Renan
13:42 The Kingdom of God is within you

Despite Nietzsche's final work of philosophy carrying the title of 'Antichrist', this work is remarkably positive about Christianity's central figure: Jesus Christ. Reading the book, it quickly becomes clear that the title refers to being anti-Christian rather than being anti-Jesus, because Nietzsche speaks in terms of admiration for Jesus.

He blames the early Christians (the Apostles, and Paul specifically) of distorting Christ's message for their own political and social gain, introducing elements of ressentiment and will to power that were simply absent from Jesus's life and teachings.

This video looks at a passage in the Antichrist in which Nietzsche claims that Jesus was not a hero nor a genius. It's a reaction to Ernest Renan, a historian of religion who played a central role in what theologians now call the "quest for the historical Jesus." A period in history during which scholars looked at the Gospels through the historical, not the theological, lens. It was a movement that sought to demystify the Gospels and separate fact from legend. Studying the Gospels as you would any other historical text, by critically examining its sources and internal contradictions.

Renan, in his best-selling and hugely influential biography of Jesus, ascribed heroic qualities to Jesus (while also denying his divinity and ability to perform miracles.)

Nietzsche accuses Renan of being a lackluster psychologist and furthermore that to call Jesus a hero is simply a mistake.

He then proceeds to give his own account of Jesus's psychological profile: claiming that the undistorted message of Jesus is one of asceticism, a new mode of being, free from resentment, a superabundance of love -- quite the opposite of what later Christians would make of his life when they sought to claim some sort of victory over their Roman oppressors and introduced ideas like Heaven or the claim that the Kingdom of God is some sort of other world which will come to pass in a future time in a spiritual place.

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Why Schopenhauer Hated Materialists

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 15:37:30 -0000

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Parerga and Paralipomena vol. 1: https://amzn.to/3pK6xCj
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The World as Will and Representation vol. 1: https://amzn.to/3FPGkIj
The World as Will and Representation vol. 2: https://amzn.to/3FT0nFC

In case it wasn’t clear, the quote at the start of this video should be read with a great deal of sarcasm.

Schopenhauer does not believe that an individual was an absolute nothing before being born, nor does he believe that we are an absolute nothing after we die. We’ve covered his views on death and what happens after it, and the metaphysics surrounding it, in another Patreon-exclusive video on the channel.

But the quote at the beginning does illustrate one of Schopenhauer’s pet peeves, namely his dislike of rationalism and what we may call “crude materialism”, the belief that there exists nothing beyond the material and that metaphysics is useless or not quote unquote “real.”

Throughout his writings Schopenhauer harps on the physicists who look down upon metaphysics and dismiss it as philosophical fables that have no bearing on the real world. These physicists argue that physics is all one needs to explain the world, and consequently that metaphysics is useless at best or harmful at worst.

In the Parerga and Paralipomena, a collection essays that serve as a supplement to his main philosophy but which can be read on their own, Schopenhauer penned down some remarks on the starting point of philosophy.

He argues that there are two possible starting points for any philosophical investigation. Either you take an objective starting point, or a subjective one.
What does he mean by this?

A subjective starting point is any philosophy that begins with the mind, or perception, or consciousness. The philosophy of Descartes is the clearest example, epitomised by the phrase “I think, therefore I am.” But Schopenhauer names Locke and Berkeley as examples, as well as Immanuel Kant, who, in his estimation, reached the peak in this subjective way of thinking.

Kant, like Locke and Berkeley but different in some key aspects, thought that the world is essentially mental, or at any rate, that there is an essential mental quality to the world. That’s why his philosophy is idealism. It’s transcendental because it differs in some important ways from the idealism of Locke and Berkeley, but these details need not concern us here.

What matters is that Kant, Locke and Berkeley all assumed the world to be mental. If not entirely, then at least in essential part. This is why they chose, according to Schopenhauer, a subjective starting point for their philosophy.

A philosophy of this kind will tend to focus on how the mind works and how it comes to knowledge of the world through its mechanisms.

An objective standpoint then, logically, is the opposite. This starting point takes the world, or nature, or matter, or the universe as its beginning.

A philosophy of this kind will end up with a focus on the relations between objects, the laws of nature, the forces at work, the interactions between materials, et cetera.

A philosophy which regards the material world as the only thing that is absolutely given will inevitably become just a form of physics, and indeed, up until recently people used the term “natural philosophy” to refer to disciplines which we would today call biology, chemistry, physics, and so on.

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar: A Nietzschean Masterpiece

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 15:08:45 -0000

Happy April Fools. Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

This video delivers a hilarious and over-the-top analysis of Eric Carle’s children’s book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," framing it as a profound Nietzschean masterpiece. We playfully argue that this simple tale of a caterpillar munching through foods before becoming a butterfly is steeped in philosophical symbolism, particularly echoing Friedrich Nietzsche’s themes of "self-overcoming," "growth," and the "will to power."

In this video, we propose that the caterpillar’s journey reflects Nietzsche’s philosophy, setting it against Schopenhauer’s "Will to Life" and Darwin’s survival-focused evolution. While Schopenhauer and Darwin emphasize mere existence, Nietzsche’s "Will to Power" insists life strives to thrive and expand—perfectly captured, we claim, by the caterpillar’s relentless eating and stunning metamorphosis. We highlight the caterpillar’s escalating appetite—from one apple to a lavish feast—as proof of its urge to transcend itself, ultimately transforming into a butterfly, which we liken to Nietzsche’s Übermensch (superhuman).

We also connect the book to German literary roots in this video, suggesting Carle’s time in Germany immersed us in Nietzsche’s ideas. We draw parallels with the Decadent movement, comparing the caterpillar’s food list to the sensory indulgence of Joris-Karl Huysmans’ "A rebours." Yet, we argue the caterpillar surpasses decadence through transformation, aligning with Nietzsche’s hopeful vision beyond nihilism. Symbols like the egg (potential and rebirth) and the sun (a new dawn) are spotlighted as Nietzschean motifs, reinforcing the caterpillar’s philosophical arc.

The video wraps up with a cheeky nudge to re-read the book through this Nietzschean lens, only to reveal it’s an April Fool’s prank. Still, amidst the humor, we pack in an educational rundown of Nietzsche’s ideas—contrasting them with Schopenhauer and Darwin—while celebrating the caterpillar’s tale as a metaphor for growth and self-overcoming. Watchers are left with both a laugh and a lesson from this cleverly crafted video.

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SCHOPENHAUER: How To Be Happy - The Wisdom of Life (pt. 1)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 14:40:00 -0000

In this work, Schopenhauer lays out his eudaimonology, or theory on how to lead a happy existence. This theory will be subject of this video series.

This first part will serve as an introduction to the work as a whole, while subsequent parts will each tackle a particular section or chapter of the work. If you want to be notified when these subsequent parts are released, please consider subscribing to the channel and clicking the Bell-button.

The first thing to be said about this work is how contradictory it is to Schopenhauer’s main philosophy.

The grand conclusion of The World as Will and Representation is that life is generally not worth living – the world is a hell, and life is full of suffering. Schopenhauer’s highest ethical ideal in this work, is the life of the ascetic: someone who withdraws from the world and turns his back on ordinary life. If you are interested in the philosophy behind all of this, you can check out our big video dedicated to this major work.

However, Schopenhauer always maintained that this saintly hermit life is a path only a few individuals can take. The vast majority of people simply don’t have it in them to live their life in this way.

Schopenhauer’s aim with the Wisdom of Life, is to write for the common man, not for the holy saint. In order to do so, he must cast aside the conclusion of his main work, and proceed with pragmatism and realism. We are not concerned with philosophy or the search for truth, we are writing a practical manual on the happy life.

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I Ranked EVERY Book by Nietzsche

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 14:11:15 -0000

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Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WHERE TO START WITH NIETZSCHE?
▶ https://youtu.be/1Hk-Y89oL24

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I
▶ Ecce Homo: https://youtu.be/kR176vUnk40

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
02:19 The Birth of Tragedy
04:51 Untimely Meditations
07:25 Human, All Too Human
08:20 Daybreak
09:31 The Joyful Science
11:16 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
12:27 Beyond Good and Evil
14:03 The Genealogy of Morals
15:27 The Case of Wagner
17:53 Twilight of the Idols
19:50 The Antichrist
21:28 Ecce Homo
23:35 The Will to Power
25:23 Conclusion and thank you

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Why Nietzsche Hated Schopenhauer

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 13:42:30 -0000

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WATCH:
▶ Nietzsche's Warning to Scientists: https://youtu.be/Qy8Xof92OYQ
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Kant: https://youtu.be/9E_RLvcZ8jI

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
03:34 Agreement of the wise
09:55 Why the wise are wrong
15:12 Metaphysical suffering
20:20 Asceticism
23:47 Compassion and pity
29:44 Nihilism
33:42 Conclusion

In order to answer this question, we need to dig deep into the very core of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Not only that, we must ask ourselves one of the most fundamental questions of all:

What is the value of life?

Nietzsche’s fundamental disagreement with Schopenhauer lies in the answer to this question. More than just a theoretical question, the question ultimately determines our attitude towards life. Your answer to this question determines whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist. Whether you affirm life, or deny life.

If you know just a little bit about Nietzsche, you know where he stands on this question, and where Schopenhauer stands on this question. But what is more insightful, is figuring out exactly why these two great philosophers answered this fundamental question differently, and why Nietzsche changed his mind on it.

This video was sponsored by Brilliant. Thank you for supporting the channel!

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The Strange Coffee Habits of Famous Philosophers (Voltaire, Kant, Kierkegaard)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 13:13:45 -0000

If you also can't resist a good cup of coffee, you're in great (and eccentric) company. This short video explores the strange coffee habits of notable philosophers, as reported by their biographers. We discuss the Parisian Café Procope, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, and Soren Kierkegaard. Do you have any weird coffee habits? Let us know in the comments.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: The Antichrist - The Renaissance Revolution (And Who Ended It) (pt. 5)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 12:45:00 -0000

WATCH:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/_V1NFlaO3TE
Part 2: https://youtu.be/QPvtIG_dgTw
Part 3: https://youtu.be/pBsXdkKMYCI
Part 4: https://youtu.be/DJe9yNIkA-g

We have seen how Nietzsche attacks Christianity on multiple fronts. Previous parts tackled his critique of pity and compassion – decadent emotions of weakness that found their sanction in Christianity. We have discussed Nietzsche’s attack on the so-called theological instinct: the drive to reason away empirical reality and the material world in favor of some kind of Hinterwelt or Beyond: whether it be Schopenhauer’s Will, Kant’s thing-in-itself or Christianity’s Heaven or Kingdom of God.

And finally, we saw how, according to Nietzsche, even the message of Jesus Christ himself was distorted by his pupils after he was crucified.

But what is Nietzsche’s endgoal in writing this scathing critique of the Christian faith? Nietzsche wanted a transvaluation of all values – a new system of ethics, of philosophy, a new system of life, completely opposed to the decadent values that he saw were dominating the culture; decadent values that found their source and justification in Christianity.

Nietzsche finds in the Renaissance the revival of pre-Christian Greco-Roman culture, an age of nobler values, above all, a celebration of life.

Even the papacy underwent this drastic transvaluation of values during the Renaissance.

The corrupt Renaissance Popes, who used the riches of the Vatican to live lavish lifestyles full of bacchanalia and banquets, which are generally considered a low-point in Church history, find in Nietzsche’s estimation a celebration of life where previously Christianity had promoted something else.

Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, launched an attack on what he viewed as corruption and excesses of the Catholic Church. But of course, for Nietzsche, these excesses and this corruption was a good thing. In Nietzsche’s historical analysis, Luther was responsible for the failure of the spirit of the Renaissance to remove Christianity from Europe.

Luther’s Protestant Reformation was a restoration of the old Christian order.

Luther’s actions ultimately rendered the Renaissance futile, meaningless. A revolution was preparing itself in Europe, but it was stopped short by the advent of Protestantism.

Still, the message is clear. Nietzsche invites us to look at the Renaissance for inspiration of what he envisions as his project for the future: the Transvaluation of values. In the Renaissance Nietzsche saw a renewed lust for life, an appreciation of beauty, an affirmation of existence, displays of strength and of a healthy culture – in short, in the Renaissance he saw everything that Christianity is not.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: The Genealogy of Morals (ALL PARTS)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 12:16:15 -0000

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
7:54 First Essay
18:27 Second Essay
32:03 Third Essay

On the Genealogy of Morals is considered by many to be Nietzsche's masterpiece. It certainly is one of the more accessible works, as it (largely) lacks the poetry and allegory of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and is not as aphoristic as Beyond Good and Evil. On the Genealogy of Morals consists of three essays which will be tackled each in their own, separate video. The introductory part of the video aims to provide a solid understanding by first asking the question: "What exactly is Nietzsche's genealogical method?" and situating the relevance of the Genealogy in the bigger Nietzschean corpus (namely: the transvaluation of all values and setting humanity up for a philosophy and morality of the future.)

The second part tackles the first essay of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. Much of it will sound familiar to those who have read Beyond Good and Evil or Daybreak. Nietzsche makes a historical-genealogical (even linguistic) case for the good/bad and good/evil dichotomy.

In the third part, we see Nietzsche dive deep into prehistory towards the creation of a morality of custom which leads to man's instinct for cruelty being repressed, and finally, turn inwards.
The bad conscience, in this analysis of Nietzsche, is not "the voice of God" as Kant and Christianity claim. Rather, the bad conscience is the paradoxical self-torture and self-pleasure that results from a drive for cruelty which cannot be directed externally and therefore must wreck havoc internally.
This is a notoriously difficult essay and it has been somewhat overlooked as a result. With this video, we hope to do it justice.

In the fourth and final part, we arrive at the grand conclusion. Nietzsche explores the question: "What do ascetic ideals mean?" Throughout history and throughout different types of men: the artist (Wagner), the philosopher (Schopenhauer), the aesthete (Kant) but most importantly, the priest (Christianity) and the scholar (scientists like Darwin and Copernicus). Nietzsche will argue that a Will to Nothingness underpins the ascetic ideal: it gives meaning to our suffering. Because, as Nietzsche said it at the start: Man would sooner will nothingness, than not will at all.

Thank you so much for watching. If you found this video helpful, please consider liking and subscribing.

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The Hidden Meaning of Socrates’ Last Words

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 11:47:30 -0000

Check out Plato's Symposium and receive an additional 20% discount on the annual subscription at http://shortform.com/weltgeist.

SUPPORT US ON PATREON:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg
▶ Nietzsche's Warning to Scientists: https://youtu.be/Qy8Xof92OYQ
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Kant: https://youtu.be/9E_RLvcZ8jI

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
01:04 Delirious Socrates
02:23 Socrates gives thanks
06:08 Clairvoyant Socrates
12:46 Socrates the pessimist
17:18 Conclusion

The meaning of these final words has been shrouded in mystery. They’ve been the subject of debate from the time of Plato up until the present day.

Socrates instructs his friend Crito to prepare a sacrificial rooster for the god Asclepius. A sacrifice for what? And why to this particular god? And why would these be his famous last words? Didn’t have anything more profound to say?

We can imagine the disappointment in the words of his friend Crito. After Socrates mentions the sacrifice, Crito asks him: if there is anything else. As if to say, “is that it? those are your final words?” But Socrates remained silent.

And indeed, most ancient commentators don’t assign all too much value to these final words. They are mostly dismissed as the ramblings of a man who has just drunk lethal poison, babbling on about roosters in a moment of hemlock-induced delirium.

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Why Pope Francis Quoted Nietzsche | Faith vs Truth

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 11:18:45 -0000

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

In 2013, Pope Francis quoted Friedrich Nietzsche in his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, a text he completed from a draft by Pope Benedict XVI. This encyclical, part of a trilogy exploring the theological virtues of charity, hope, and faith, cites a letter Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, where he contrasts the comfort and peace offered by faith with the bold, uncertain pursuit of truth through philosophy and exploration. By including this quote, the encyclical positions Nietzsche as a representative of modern rationalism, embodying the contemporary challenge to Christianity’s relevance in an era that prioritizes science, reason, and individual inquiry over traditional religious frameworks.

The inclusion of Nietzsche underscores a profound tension between two opposing worldviews. The Catholic Church, as articulated in Lumen Fidei, pursues a universal mission to promote the “common good,” seeking to provide moral and spiritual guidance for all. Nietzsche, however, is an elitist thinker who writes for a select few, emphasizing the individual—particularly the Übermensch, or "overman"—who forges new values and transcends conventional morality. In works like Beyond Good and Evil and The Antichrist, Nietzsche explicitly rejects the idea of a shared “common good,” arguing that what is common lacks value and that true greatness lies in the exceptional individual’s ability to create meaning and bend the world to their will. This stark contrast highlights not just a philosophical disagreement but a fundamental difference in purpose: the Church’s inclusive, collective vision versus Nietzsche’s focus on solitary, transformative genius.

Lumen Fidei further explores this divide by addressing the nature of truth. The Church advocates for an objective truth rooted in Christian teachings, which it believes can guide humanity universally. Nietzsche, by contrast, questions the very concept of objective truth, viewing it as suspect when applied universally. For him, truth is subjective, tied to the individual’s deepest convictions and creative power, as exemplified by the Übermensch. This perspective is reflected in his admiration for figures like Pontius Pilate, whose skeptical question, “What is truth?” in The Antichrist captures Nietzsche’s disdain for universal claims to truth and his celebration of individual authenticity.

Despite his atheism and critique of Christianity, Nietzsche acknowledges the societal role of religion in shaping values and culture, as discussed in texts like On the Genealogy of Morality and Beyond Good and Evil. His famous declaration, “God is dead,” reflects not a personal triumph but a cultural observation about the decline of religious authority in the modern world. Lumen Fidei uses Nietzsche’s ideas to frame the challenges facing Christianity in a rational, post-Enlightenment era, where appeals to biblical authority or traditional teachings no longer hold the unchallenged sway they once did. The encyclical grapples with how Christian faith can still serve the common good in a world increasingly skeptical of absolute truths.

Ultimately, the dialogue between Pope Francis and Nietzsche in Lumen Fidei reveals a deeper question about human existence: “How should we live?” For the Catholic Church, this is a universal question, answered through shared faith and objective truth. For Nietzsche, it is an individual pursuit, answered through personal authenticity and t

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NIETZSCHE Explained: The Antichrist - How Jesus Christ was Misunderstood (pt. 4)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 10:50:00 -0000

WATCH:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/_V1NFlaO3TE
Part 2: https://youtu.be/QPvtIG_dgTw
Part 3: https://youtu.be/pBsXdkKMYCI

The figure of Jesus Christ is a complicated, complex character in Nietzsche’s writings. On the one hand, Nietzsche is obviously opposed to all values Christianity stands for. On the other hand, Nietzsche speaks high praise of Jesus Christ the person.

To completely understand this dichotomy, it’s necessary to make a distinction between Jesus Christ, his life and death, and Jesus Christ as he was later interpreted by his pupils, the Apostles, and subsequentely, the Church and its history.

Like many in the 19th century, Nietzsche was very interested in Jesus Christ beyond his depiction in the Gospels, the four books in the Bible that serve as a sort of biography. The Gospels were written decades after the death of Jesus, and they are not historical documents, but religious ones. What this means is that they are not necessarily an accurate depiction of what Jesus was like. The Evangelists, those who wrote the Gospels, had an agenda. And it’s this agenda that Nietzsche finds problematic, and it’s this agenda that has ruined the figure of Jesus Christ, and which, ironically, gave birth to Christianity.

When Jesus was crucificied, his Apostles could not believe it. The death of Jesus was an unexpected event: here was the Savior of humanity, tortured and put to death in the most humiliating way possible. Were they misled? What happened? This death of Jesus caused them great anguish. In all likelihood, some of them even felt cheated.

Nietzsche tries to understand the psychology of such an apostle.

The death of Jesus is now seen as a sacrifice, now there is need of a resurrection, or a state of life after death… None of which was really mentioned by Jesus himself.

Nietzsche often repeats the sentence “The Kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) which is said by Jesus according to the Gospel of Luke. What Jesus meant is that the Kingdom of God is not a place, or not something that will come in the future. The Kingdom of God is within you, it’s a state of mind.

The Kingdom of God is within you… It’s already here. There is no need for “guilt, “sin”, “resurrection” or no need to be saved, even.

But where does this distortion come from? It’s rooted in ressentiment.

Nietzsche argues that the Apostles, and consequentely, all of Church history, fundamentally misunderstood Jesus. They couldn’t deal with his death, and to make this loss bearable, and justify it to themselves, they invented notions like the afterlife. Now, death does not have the last word… It was a way for the apostles to get back at those who killed their Teacher.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: DAYBREAK - Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 10:21:15 -0000

OUR RECOMMENDED TRANSLATION: https://amzn.to/3BsOUJT

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Daybreak is probably the most underrated canonical work of the famous German philosopher. Overshadowed by Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Daybreak offers an overview of Nietzsche’s main ideas in a way you might not have heard about them before.

The first part covers the title of the book, Nietzsche’s overarching project, and his love for the empirical presocratic philosophers (Democritus, Heraclitus, Anaximenes, Thales of Miletus) and his distaste for the idealistic philosophy of Plato and his World of Forms.

In part two we dive deep into Nietzsche’s so-called assault on morality. Drawing heavily upon German materialism and “morality’s greatest prejudice”, Nietzsche will seek to destroy the moralities of old, moralities informed by false belief in a Hinterwelt. Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, Christianity: all moral systems will have to meet their end. Nietzsche then challenges us to create a new morality. A morality not built on custom and tradition.

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Why School Won't Educate You | Nietzsche

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 09:52:30 -0000

SUPPORT US ON PATREON:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Schopenhauer: How Education Makes You Dumber: https://youtu.be/GE30yosa0cs
▶ Nietzsche's Warning to Scientists: https://youtu.be/Qy8Xof92OYQ
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Kant: https://youtu.be/9E_RLvcZ8jI

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

Nietzsche dedicates a few paragraphs in Twilight of the Idols to the problems with modern education.

Most of his problems with modern education stem from his elitism. Which in turn stems from his disdain for the herd, or the great masses.

Nietzsche’s antagonism towards modern education is built on three foundations:

First, the lack of good teachers. Second, the democratization of education. Third, the hastiness by which modern education must happen.

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Nietzsche's Mistake: Dionysian Art and German Romanticism (Schopenhauer and Wagner)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 09:23:45 -0000

In The Joyful Science, we can read how Nietzsche admits to having a made a mistake in his interpretation of the German Romantic movement. We learn that he mischaracterized the source from which this movement sprung: both Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner, seen as exemplars of Romanticism, were misinterpreted by Nietzsche. What was his mistake exactly? It has something to do with Dionysian art, suffering, and the character of philosophical pessimism.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: The Antichrist - The Theological Instinct (pt. 3)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 08:55:00 -0000

WATCH:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/_V1NFlaO3TE
Part 2: https://youtu.be/QPvtIG_dgTw

What is Nietzsche’s problem with theologians, and what does he mean exactly when he talks of the theological instinct?

Chiefly, Nietzsche points out “idealists” as exemplars of those with theological instinct. The theological instinct is the tendency of philosophers and priests to look at reality with suspicion.

When Nietzsche speaks of the theological instinct in the Antichrist, he is referring to this mistake – postulating God as the first cause, as the ultimate reality. Nothing could be further from the truth, according to Nietzsche – the theologian flips metaphysics on its head. He puts first, the thing that should come last, or rather, the thing that should not come at all.

The idealist philosopher is also guilty of making this mistake. Arthur Schopenhauer and Immanuel Kant, for example, have both reasoned that not this world, but some other world, the Will in Schopenhauer and the thing-in-itself in Kant, is the ens realissimum, or the most real thing.

But it is not just a metaphysical question. By flipping reality on its head, so to speak, the theologian also flips morality on its head.

The theological instinct against which Nietzsche declares war, is of course best exemplified not in the philosophy of Kant or Schopenhauer, but in Christianity itself. Thus Nietzsche characterizes Christianity as being completely imaginary: making up imaginary causes which lead to imaginary effects.

We can see how this theological instinct is, for Nietzsche, the root of everything that is bad with the world. The theological instinct leads to bad metaphysics, which leads to bad ethics, which leads to a distrust of nature, which leads to a distrust of life… Which leads to décadence, weakness, and ressentiment.

And the theological instinct finds expression in Kant and Schopenhauer, and with them in the entire tradition of Western philosophy, but most of all, it finds its expression in the religion of Christianity. And against this instinct, against this religion, Nietzsche will wage and attempt to set the record straight.

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Why We Don't Show Our True Face in Society | Nietzsche

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 08:26:15 -0000

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
01:20 You can't handle the truth
03:24 Hiding from others
08:05 Hiding from yourself

In Beyond Good and Evil, the theme of the mask pops up now and again. Nietzsche considers it necessary for a philosopher (or free spirit) to conceal himself. Both from others, and himself. From others, because a true psychology would be shocking to society, laying bare the 'black and deep desires' of man. We must dilate the truths of our inner world, make it more palatable. Hence; a mask.

We also hide from ourselves. Moral biases and prejudices, ingrained since birth, cause internal resistance when we dig too deep down into our soul. We may not like what we find. The mind creates defense mechanisms. Nietzsche here touches upon a psychological phenomenon that would in modern times be called cognitive dissonance or self-deception.

He considered his philosophical work to be start of a psychology of the future in which "free spirits" (his dreamed-of new guard of philosophers) would boldly dare go beyond good and evil in their examination of the human psyche, setting sail over morality into new territory, heretofore unexplored.

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The Greatest Question in Philosophy

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 07:57:30 -0000

SUPPORT US ON PATREON:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Nietzsche's Warning to Scientists: https://youtu.be/Qy8Xof92OYQ
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Kant: https://youtu.be/9E_RLvcZ8jI

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

For 2000 years, European culture had been dominated by the idea of God. God as the source of truth, beauty and justice. What is good? Good is whatever is sanctioned by God. What is evil? Evil is whatever is prohibited by God.

The moral order had God as its foundation. Critically, the concept of God is transcendent. He exists not as a part of the world, but rather God exists outside of the world if you will, above it, beyond it.

That is what allows God’s morality to be objective: it’s sacred, it doesn’t find its origin our world with all its imperfections and contingencies.

So what is really at stake with the death of God, is not the disappearance of God himself, but rather the death of objective morality as such.

Scientific atheism had been preparing itself in the decades leading up to Nietzsche’s proclamation. Little by little, God had become superfluous: the world could be explained through the scientific method.

Even worse, the place of man in the universe had been under constant attack. No longer were we created in God’s image, chosen by God to fulfil his divine plan. Copernicus robbed us of our central place in the universe, and Darwin gave us a worldly explanation for the origin of man: descent from an ape-like ancestor.

But what these scientific discoveries reinforced, is the idea that only this world is the real world. Confidence in the scientific method and its great explanatory power eroded the necessity for a beyond world. After all: we seem to be doing pretty well without it.

Yet, our existence in the material world is characterised by change and contingency. Everything is in constant flux, cultures change, wars are fought, empires are lost and won. Continental drift. Entropy. The expanding universe.

Where can we find something everlasting, something eternally true, a solid foundation on which to build our table of values? Where can meaning be found?

Nietzsche dedicates a few words to Schopenhauer’s reception in German philosophy, and he’s not positive about it. He mentions by name three philosophers:

Julius Bahnsen
Eduard von Hartmann
Philipp Mainländer

These three were followers of Schopenhauer’s philosophy who critically engaged with it and let him influence their own philosophy. In this sense they are post-Schopenhauerian philosophers. But neither of these three, says Nietzsche, truly engaged with the most important question that Schopenhauer asked. They are not real pessimists.

Let’s fast-forward to today. It’s been over 200 years since Schopenhauer first unleashed his philosophy upon the world, and it’s been over a 100 years since Nietzsche died.

Where are we now in regards to the fundamental question: what is the significance of existence?

Well, we haven’t conclusively answered the question yet. And we probably never will. But the question has become more urgent than ever.

In a way, this question spawned the entirety of existentialist philosophy, which dominated the latter half of the 20th century.

Kierkegaard, the philosopher who is commonly credited with being the first truly existentialist philosopher, tried to escape Hegel’s all-encompassing system of the development of history. Looking at Hegel’s huge construction, his

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Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Religion - The Pessimism of Christianity (pt. 2)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 07:28:45 -0000

This video is part 2 in our series on Schopenhauer’s philosophy of religion. Part one was about his broader philosophy of religion, which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9EVlUJyrQg. In this part, we will zoom in on Schopenhauer’s criticism and evaluation of Christianity and the theological problem of reconciling the Old with the New Testament.

The main religious text in Christianity, the Bible, is composed of the Old and the New Testament. The problem is that Schopenhauer sees an optimistic worldview in the Old and a pessimistic worldview in the New Testament.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: The Antichrist - The Problem with Pity (pt. 2)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 07:00:00 -0000

WATCH:
The Antichrist pt. 1: https://youtu.be/_V1NFlaO3TE
Twilight of the Idols, the Weak vs. the Strong: https://youtu.be/ufd2QLenoAM

In this part, we will go over the notion of pity and why Nietzsche thought that pity was one of the most harmful elements of Christianity.

In earlier works, Nietzsche already spoke out against pity, or compassion. For example, in a paragraph of The Joyful Science, Nietzsche laments how pity leads us away from our own path and our individuality: pity as a distraction.

Nietzsche’s demonization of pity or compassion is an obvious attack on Schopenhauer’s philosophy, which held that compassion is the root of all morality. In fact, he is probably directly alluding to Schopenhauer in the above passage. And it is true, that for Schopenhauer, supreme goodness consists in complete compassion for other people and animals, so much so, that the perfectly good person should forget his own individuality altogether!

This is absolutely appalling to Nietzsche. In this formulation of pity, Nietzsche sees a denial of life, a resignation, a saying of No. A degeneration of man’s primal instinct: the will to power.

Pity, driven to its ethical conclusion, will make you a part of the herd by stamping out your individuality. Pity is the primary virtue of slave morality.

And it is therefore no coincidence that we find compassion, or “love thy neighbor” as the greatest commandment in Christianity.

But this is not the whole story. There is another problem with pity.

The reaction to pity, Nietzsche argues, is always disproportional to the cause. This makes pity extra insidious. Pity is the ultimate emotion of corruption, of degeneracy, because when we are being compassionate, we take the side of the weak and grant them a kind of power which they do not deserve. This, in turn, reflects badly on life itself.

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Dostoevsky's Guide to Escaping Hell

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 06:31:15 -0000

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Why Nietzsche Loved Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 06:02:30 -0000

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DOWNLOAD "Self-Reliance": https://weltgeist.tv/emerson

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
02:22 Brother-soul
06:17 Philosopher-poet
10:17 Self-Reliance

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WATCH:
▶ Nietzsche's Warning to Scientists: https://youtu.be/Qy8Xof92OYQ
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Kant: https://youtu.be/9E_RLvcZ8jI

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

This video was sponsored by Brilliant.

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NIETZSCHE: Will to Power Explained (all parts)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 05:33:45 -0000

This video is a deep-dive explanation of one of the most notorious concepts in Western philosophy: Nietzsche's Will to Power. What is the philosophical background, how did it evolve throughout Nietzsche's intellectual career, and how can we look at the concept today?

The first part serves as an introduction of sorts. We’ll go over Nietzsche’s intellectual background, most importantly the influence of Schopenhauer and Darwinism. We will also look at the question of interpretation: is the Will to Power a metaphysical principle or simply a human drive or emotion?

In the second part we go over Nietzsche's entire body of published work and trace how the concept of the Will to Power evolved throughout Nietzsche's intellectual career and philosophy.
We see how Nietzsche first thinks about power in The Joyful Science but how the term was first coined in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and how it gradually becomes an all-encompassing force by the time we get to works such as Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ. We will see how the main question in this series, "is the Will to Power a metaphysical force or a materialist or psychological drive?" is not so simple to answer.

WATCH our in-depth video on the Will to Power in Beyond Good and Evil here:
https://youtu.be/2Ap9lkhHizU

In the third and final part of our series on Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Will to Power, we look at a modern interpretation (Bernard Reginster's The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism from 2006) to finally settle the question of whether or not the Will to power is a metaphysical concept or not -- turns out we have to take a middle road and figure out what exactly Nietzsche means by "power"...

Timestamps:
00:00 Part 1
07:10 Part 2
20:14 Part 3

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SCHOPENHAUER: Four Masters of Poetry (Top 4 Poets)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 05:05:00 -0000

RECOMMENDED READING:
1) The Essential Goethe (https://amzn.to/3waasZB)
2) The Complete Works of Shakespeare (https://amzn.to/3g5bzEf)
3) Lord Byron: The Major Works (https://amzn.to/353peFJ)
4) Calderon, Life is a Dream (https://amzn.to/3x39tui)

WATCH: The Art of Not Reading: Schopenhauer's 6 Rules: https://youtu.be/LCTHrBC2zSw
WATCH: Four Must-Read Books According to Schopenhauer: https://youtu.be/0PWBfDhmhgE

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was an avid reader, and he had a lot to say about the art of reading. Or rather, the art of not reading. We have covered that essay in a previous video.

In the essay, Schopenhauer stressed the importance of picking good books, because life is short and time is limited. In the comments, a lot of people were asking for specific recommendations. Which books did Schopenhauer enjoy? In this video we will go over some of the authors Schopenhauer particularly enjoyed.

This video will be more about authors than individual works. There are some authors Schopenhauer held in such high esteem, he enjoyed every single one of their works.

Disclaimer: When you buy one of these works from the above links, I earn a small commission, at absolutely no cost to you. Consider it a way to support the channel while also adding some worthwhile classics to your home library.

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NIETZSCHE: What Is Dionysian Art? (Nietzsche's Mistake pt. 2)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 04:36:15 -0000

WATCH part 1: https://youtu.be/l_eMcosHDAc

Nietzsche assumed Richard Wagner's music and Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy were the products of an overflowing vitality, or a surplus of life. However, in the Joyful Science, he changes his mind. It was a mistake to think Wagner and Schopenhauer are a product of exuberance, rather, Wagner and Schopenhauer are a product of a lack of vitality.

Most notably in his work The Case of Wagner we find a long polemic that seeks to critique Wagner’s music, and with it, Schopenhauer’s philosophy. If there’s enough interest, we’ll do a separate video on Nietzsche versus Wagner. Comment below if you’re interested.

This video is not about criticism. In this follow-up video, we want to look at what kind of art this late Nietzsche considers good. If bad art procedes from a lack of vitality, what kind of art procedes from a surplus of vitality?

In the paragraph of the Joyful Science in question, Nietzsche drops four names:

“[Art may] proceed from gratitude and love:—art of this origin will always be an art of apotheosis, perhaps dithyrambic, as with Rubens, mocking divinely, as with Hafiz, or clear and kind-hearted as with Goethe, and spreading a Homeric brightness and glory over everything.”

--- Music in the video (CC)
Canon in D Major by Kevin MacLeod is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0-licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100301

Artist: http://incompetech.com/

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How Over-Thinking Kills You | Nietzsche

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 04:07:30 -0000

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Why Death Is Not The End | Schopenhauer

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 03:38:45 -0000

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NIETZSCHE Explained: The Antichrist - Introduction (pt. 1)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 03:10:00 -0000

WATCH:
Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk

Welcome to part 1 in a planned series on Nietzsche’s work, The Antichrist. In this first video we will briefly introduce the work and go over some necessary context. In following parts, we will do a deep dive analysis. If you want to be notified when these parts are released, please subscribe to the channel and click the Bell button.

As always, we begin with the title. The original German, Der Antichrist, actually has two meanings in English. It can literally mean “the Antichrist”, referring to the character in the Bible that is predicted to come to Earth in the end times.

But it can also simply mean “Anti-christian”.

Nietzsche is obviously being provocative by engaging in this double entendre, which is also why most English translations decide on “The Antichrist” as the title. Although, it must be noted, Nietzsche never uses the term “Antichrist” in the book to refer to the biblical character. He only ever uses the term to mean “Anti-Christian.”

The title of this work is also less mysterious than, let’s say, Daybreak, Twilight of the Idols, and of course, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It’s obvious what Nietzsche will attempt in this work: a sustained critique of the Christian worldview and morality.

The Antichrist was actually the first instalment in a planned four-volume work, which Nietzsche could never complete due to his mental collapse. The work was to be entitled:

The Will to Power: A Transvaluation of All Values

And the four volumes making up the work would be:

1. The Antichrist: an Attempt at a Criticism of Christianity.
2. The Free Spirit: a Criticism of Philosophy as a Nihilistic Movement
3. The Immoralist: a Criticism of Morality, the Most Fatal Form of Ignorance
4. Dionysus: the Philosophy of Eternal Recurrence.

As it stands, however, only the first volume, the Antichrist, was released as intended by Nietzsche. There have been attempts to reconstruct Nietzsche’s original vision of this great work but this is controversial. This reconstruction is known as The Will to Power and was heavily edited by Nietzsche’s sister. Because of this, and because Nietzsche never intended these notes for publication in the first place, this reconstruction is not generally considered to be canonical.

But back to the Antichrist. This work was written in 1888, which makes this book, together with the autobiography Ecce Homo, Nietzsche’s final publication before his descent into madness. Just like with Twilight of the Idols, this means that the book is of a very radical nature. The late Nietzsche pulls no punches in his philosophical writings. He wants to hit hard and provoke his audience. We will see exactly how as this series continues.

Much of what we will cover in this series, will sound familiar to long-time viewers of the channel. We will talk about décadence, the Will to Power, master and slave morality, and other Nietzschean concepts that were covered in other videos.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: Twilight of the Idols - Introduction (pt. 1)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 02:41:15 -0000

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols is a short work. It was written in just over a week in 1888, one year before Nietzsche’s mental collapse.

In the collected works of Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols stands as a sort of summary of Nietzsche’s entire philosophy up until that point.

The writing style is radical. The contents are radical. There is very little nuance, and the reader gets the impression that Nietzsche is out to shock his audience. Some interpreters have even speculated that in Twilight of the Idols, we can already see the signs of Nietzsche’s coming mental breakdown.

In this series, we’ll go over the most important ideas present in the book. Because the entire book was written as a sort of summary of the late Nietzsche’s philosophy, this series will also serve as a good introduction to Nietzsche’s thought in general. Still, for a more in-depth overview, we recommend our series on Beyond Good and Evil and the Genealogy of Morals.

Twilight of the Idols is a play on words. Nietzsche is parodying the title of the final opera in the famous Ring-cycle by Richard Wagner: Twilight of the Gods. The pun is more obvious in German: Götterdämmerung versus Götzendämmerung.

The fourth and final part of Wagner’s Ring cycle ends with the destruction of the gods: Valhalla goes up in flames, the eponymous ring is returned to the Rhinemaidens, the banks of the Rhine river overflow and extinguish the fire. The gods are dead, but the world is born anew. Humans, from now on, are no longer playthings of the gods, but free beings ready to create their own destiny.

Similarly, Nietzsche envisions a future in which humans are free from the “philosophical gods” of the past – ideas that have come to be regarded as dogmatically true from which mankind must liberate itself.

But Nietzsche named his book Twilight of the Idols, not Twilight of the Gods. An idol, in a religious context, is a man-made object that is venerated for the deity that it represents. In Christianity, Judaism and Islam, idolatry – the worship of man-made objects – is strictly forbidden. In other words, an idol could be said to be false god.

By choosing this title, Nietzsche is saying he will set out to destroy certain false gods – mistakes philosophers before him have made.

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Why Schopenhauer Hated Hegel

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 02:12:30 -0000

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Schopenhauer and Hegel on Napoleon Bonaparte
▶ https://youtu.be/PYikGlrN7Co
Schopenhauer on History versus Philosophy
▶ https://youtu.be/6DEUHYj8nhY

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Where does the hate come from?
04:05: The story of the horse
06:50 Hegel’s “science”
13:00 Hegel’s writing style
16:42 Hegel’s philosophy
23:05 Conclusion

SCHOPENHAUER'S WORKS:
Parerga and Paralipomena vol. 1: https://amzn.to/3pK6xCj
Parerga and Paralipomena vol. 2: https://amzn.to/3jJa2p0
The World as Will and Representation vol. 1: https://amzn.to/3FPGkIj
The World as Will and Representation vol. 2: https://amzn.to/3FT0nFC
Schopenhauer’s work is notoriously for constantly and repeatedly dunking on Hegel.

He said Hegel’s philosophy stupefied an entire generation, maintained that posterity would look down on Hegel as a “monument to German stupidity”, providing later generations with endless laughter. His “school of dulness”, “center of ignorance” was the greatest example of the corruption of academic philosophy.

Where does this hatred come from? Generally, it’s agreed that Schopenhauer hates Hegel for personal reasons, but also for philosophical reasons.

The two men had a bit of an altercation when Schopenhauer had to pass an exam in order to teach at the University of Berlin. Hegel asked him a question on “animal functions” but used the term wrongly. Schopenhauer corrected him, and the professor of medicine and biology concurred. This little incident proved to Schopenhauer that Hegel was a charlatan, unable to use a philosophical term in the correct manner.

Another possible source of hatred was Schopenhauer’s envy: we know he deeply desired fame but was largely ignored up until the very end of his life. Contrast this with Hegel, who was a philosophical superstar and world-famous almost immediately.

But philosophically, there are disagreements too. Hegel’s philosophy hinges too much upon history. For Schopenhauer, history was the polar opposite of philosophy: it focuses on the particular instead of on the general. For Schopenhauer, all of history is simply a manifestation through time of one underlying Will, with the Will itself being unchanging. Philosophy is the study of this Will. History is the study of the appearance, or manifestation. In this framework, Hegel makes an unforgivable category-error: he thinks he’s doing philosophy, but he’s actually a historian.
He also disagreed with Hegel’s general outlook. That history is the progressive realization of a fundamentally good ideal; history being the march of the Geist as it unfolds itself and comes to know itself, ultimately resulting in total human freedom. Schopenhauer disagreed that the world is going in a particular direction (being only a manifestation of something unchanging) but also he disagreed with the implied optimism of this philosophy of history. We’re not marching towards some ideal, we’re just here to suffer, forever and ever. Existence has no goal beyond this, let alone some rational Geist permeating everything.

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NIETZSCHE: Will to Power and Overcoming Nihilism (part 3)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 01:43:45 -0000

WATCH:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/0TbxTGwge-4
Part 2: https://youtu.be/S2keARUVGJM

In this third and final part of our series on Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Will to Power, we look at a modern interpretation (Bernard Reginster's The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism from 2006) to finally settle the question of whether or not the Will to power is a metaphysical concept or not -- turns out we have to take a middle road and figure out what exactly Nietzsche means by "power"...

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NIETZSCHE Explained: Twilight of the Idols (all parts)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 01:15:00 -0000

Please subscribe if you enjoyed this video! TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Introduction
03:29 Decadence & Socrates
12:31 Morality Against Nature
18:04 The Weak Against the Strong

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols is a short work. It was written in just over a week in 1888, one year before Nietzsche’s mental collapse.

In the collected works of Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols stands as a sort of summary of Nietzsche’s entire philosophy up until that point.

The writing style is radical. The contents are radical. There is very little nuance, and the reader gets the impression that Nietzsche is out to shock his audience. Some interpreters have even speculated that in Twilight of the Idols, we can already see the signs of Nietzsche’s coming mental breakdown.

In this series, we’ll go over the most important ideas present in the book. Because the entire book was written as a sort of summary of the late Nietzsche’s philosophy, this series will also serve as a good introduction to Nietzsche’s thought in general. Still, for a more in-depth overview, we recommend our series on Beyond Good and Evil and the Genealogy of Morals.

Twilight of the Idols is a play on words. Nietzsche is parodying the title of the final opera in the famous Ring-cycle by Richard Wagner: Twilight of the Gods. The pun is more obvious in German: Götterdämmerung versus Götzendämmerung.

The fourth and final part of Wagner’s Ring cycle ends with the destruction of the gods: Valhalla goes up in flames, the eponymous ring is returned to the Rhinemaidens, the banks of the Rhine river overflow and extinguish the fire. The gods are dead, but the world is born anew. Humans, from now on, are no longer playthings of the gods, but free beings ready to create their own destiny.

Similarly, Nietzsche envisions a future in which humans are free from the “philosophical gods” of the past – ideas that have come to be regarded as dogmatically true from which mankind must liberate itself.

But Nietzsche named his book Twilight of the Idols, not Twilight of the Gods. An idol, in a religious context, is a man-made object that is venerated for the deity that it represents. In Christianity, Judaism and Islam, idolatry – the worship of man-made objects – is strictly forbidden. In other words, an idol could be said to be false god.

By choosing this title, Nietzsche is saying he will set out to destroy certain false gods – mistakes philosophers before him have made.

One of the most elusive yet most frequently used words in Twilight of the Idols, is the word “décadence.” Interestingly, Nietzsche prefers to use the French term even though he sometimes uses German words like Verfall, Niedergang, or Entartung. In English, we can keep the French term, or use words like Degeneration or even Corruption.

Nietzsche uses the term to denote the process by which individuals, or even entire societies or time periods become worse, or, degenerate. Much of Twilight of the Idols is devoted to the description of how this process and works and what that means.

However, in true Nietzschean fashion, we never find a real definition or sustained analysis of what degeneration is exactly. It’s up to us, the readers, to piece things together and make a coherent picture out of disparate parts and fragments.

Nietzsche will argue that a morality is defined by how it teaches us to deal with these passions. Nietzsche notes that nearly every morality thus far formulated, advocates the quelling of passion.

It’s not hard to come up with examples. The idea that impulsive emotion is bad, that unbridled lust or greed are problematic, that violent anger is rarely justified – these are all ideas that have become so commonplace they are barely questioned. Every single system of morality, from Stoicism to Buddhism to Kantian ethics – preaches either the control or even the annihilation of emotions.

This is the proto

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Why Nietzsche Loved Dostoevsky

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 00:46:15 -0000

Keep exploring at https://brilliant.org/Weltgeist/. Get started for free, and hurry—the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription.

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
03:14 A bookshop in France
06:22 Know thyself - or don't
11:16 Ressentiment
16:54 Conclusion

Nietzsche first discovered the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky in 1887. This is relatively late in his intellectual career, yet the Russian writer still had a profound influence on him.

He called Dostoevsky “the only psychologist from whom I had anything to learn” and read a few of his novels in French translation. The very first novel he read was Notes from the Underground, although in a botched, low-quality French translation.
Still, it’s highly likely that Nietzsche got the idea (maybe even the word) of ressentiment from Dostoevsky. This French term appears 4 times in the book that Nietzsche read, and while inklings of the idea were present in earlier works, it was not until the Genealogy of Morals (written in 1887, so the same year as his discovery of Dostoevsky) that the word would take centre stage in his philosophy.

Dostoevsky describes the inner psychology of the Underground Man, touching upon themes of isolation, cognitive dissonance, struggles with nihilism, and most importantly (for Nietzsche) resentment. He describes the man of “heightened consciousness” who does not immediately strike back upon being hit, but plots and thinks and analyses his revenge instead. Out of weakness, perhaps, or simply because he thinks too much about the question of justice.

In any case, this lingering has nasty psychological side effects. Dostoevsky describes this man as a mouse, who hides in his mouse-hole and feasts on his own eternal spite. Over time he might even start to enjoy this wallowing in self-pity.

This describes almost to a T, Nietzsche’s idea of ressentiment. The condition of the slave, who cannot win from his masters (the strong) in the real world and therefore takes recourse in an imaginary revenge. This slave morality would ultimately give birth to Christianity and other so-called Hinterwelt philosophies.

But what Nietzsche admired most was Dostoevsky’s psychological insight into what makes us human. The portrait of the Underground Man is dark and deep, the type of psychology that Nietzsche first envisions in Beyond Good and Evil, the new “crown of the sciences”, a psychology that dares to leave morality behind and venture beyond good and evil.

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How to Be Happy | Schopenhauer

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 00:17:30 -0000

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Schopenhauer and Hegel on Napoleon Bonaparte
▶ https://youtu.be/PYikGlrN7Co
Schopenhauer on History versus Philosophy
▶ https://youtu.be/6DEUHYj8nhY

▶ SCHOPENHAUER'S WORKS:
Parerga and Paralipomena vol. 1: https://amzn.to/3pK6xCj
Parerga and Paralipomena vol. 2: https://amzn.to/3jJa2p0
The World as Will and Representation vol. 1: https://amzn.to/3FPGkIj
The World as Will and Representation vol. 2: https://amzn.to/3FT0nFC

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How Kant Saved Christianity | Nietzsche

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 23:48:45 -0000

The full video is about Nietzsche's problem with his contemporary culture and is up on Patreon only.
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Kant: https://youtu.be/9E_RLvcZ8jI

ALSO:
▶ Nietzsche's Warning to Scientists: https://youtu.be/Qy8Xof92OYQ
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

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Why Religion is Fake | Freud

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 23:20:00 -0000

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OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

Sigmund Freud, in works such as The Future of an Illusion and Civilization and Its Discontents, was extremely critical of religion. Calling religions illusions, he maintained that they arise out of a child's need for comfort as it grows up in an increasingly hostile world as it leaves the parental bubble.

The desire for the safety of the father ultimately leads to what we would call religions today, often with god(s) as a father figure on central stage.

Moving on from the individual to the societal level, religions are illusions that help maintain civilization by encouraging adherents to repress their most violent, primal instincts.

Freud believed however, that religions would come to be discarded as their function is fulfilled by other mechanisms, by the advent of science and the further development of reason.

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SCHOPENHAUER: How Education Makes You Dumber

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 22:51:15 -0000

DOWNLOAD: Schopenhauer's Essay On Education: https://weltgeist.tv/education

WATCH: Schopenhauer on Reading: https://youtu.be/LCTHrBC2zSw
WATCH: Schopenhauer on Writing: https://youtu.be/EI64O2RYrLg
WATCH: Schopenhauer on Noise: https://youtu.be/9MwFNj0W0_k

In the natural state, humans form ideas based on their observations of the world. Experience comes before learning – this is how humans make sense of the world around them. When ideas are generated in this way, there is an obvious link between an observation and the subsequent idea.

Traditional education flips this dynamic on its head. In traditional, or, articifical education as Schopenhauer calls it, the idea precedes the experience.

What happens when you learn the ideas, before you have the necessary experience, is you will apply those ideas wrongly as soon as you step out of the classroom into the real world.

The teacher is busy cramming the head of the student full of ideas, instead of teaching the student how to think in the first place. Children will then grow up with a worldview that is based on hearsay and opinion, and they are rarely equipped to handle the real world.

Children are submerged in a ready-made apparatus of opinion and prejudice, and if the real world conflicts with this web of ideas – which is bound to happen as the child grows up, then he will not change his opinion but rather lash out at the world instead. Although lacking the proper term, Schopenhauer is describing here what we would call cognitive dissonance today.

Education should seek to put observation before ideas and thus mimick the natural way in which humans learn things.

However, Schopenhauer also notes that during youth, our faculties of judgment are not yet fully developed. This is why he proposes that in the first years of a child’s education, there will be no subject matter that falls into what we would call “the humanities” today. So no philosophy, no religion, no matters of opinion.

Until age 16, a child should be taught only those subjects in which objective errors are possible, for example, mathematics or languages. Schopenhauer also mentions history here, but only the kind of history that is concerned with memorization, such as remembering dates.

The added benefit of this approach, says Schopenhauer, is that our memory is the strongest during our youth. And those things we memorize when we are young, we often remember for life.

Therefore it’s of great importance that these youthful years are used to let children soak up as much quality information as possible. Schopenhauer proposes that a group of experts from every branch of knowledge comes together every 10 years, to decide on a canon of essential knowledge.

Schopenhauer argues that maturity must come with experience. Today, we might say this is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. For Schopenhauer, engaging with the real world is of extreme importance.

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How Betraying Your Friends Can Save You | Nietzsche

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 22:22:30 -0000

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WATCH:
▶ Nietzsche On Hamlet: https://youtu.be/_qVXWGQkHbc

ALSO:
▶ Nietzsche's Warning to Scientists: https://youtu.be/Qy8Xof92OYQ
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Socrates: https://youtu.be/DM78nStythg
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Plato: https://youtu.be/nEhNRuPh4As
▶ Why Nietzsche Hated Kant: https://youtu.be/9E_RLvcZ8jI

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

Nietzsche dedicates a paragraph of the Joyful Science to Shakespeare. He praises Julius Caesar as his best tragedy, and calls Brutus “virtuous.”

Yet historically, Brutus was the prototypical traitor, even starring alongside Judas in Dante’s depiction of Hell, being eternally chewed up by one of Lucifer’s mouths.

And even though Shakespeare has Mark Antony call Brutus “the noblest Roman of them all” at the end of the play, he does so for different reasons than Nietzsche finds.

For Nietzsche, Brutus did what he did to protect the freedom and independence of his soul. He killed Caesar not for the good of Rome, at least not on a psychological level. His real reason was that Caesar presented an obstacle to his independence.

And, according to Nietzsche, no price is too high to pay for independence of soul. Not even the life of a friend can stand in the way. That’s what makes Brutus great.

Furthermore, Nietzsche praises Shakespeare for portraying Brutus in a positive light, for not casting a “shadow of suspicion” on the kind of virtue that Brutus represents. A virtue of a different character than Caesar, who could also count on Nietzsche’s admiration.

Nietzsche’s philosophy is all about growth and self-overcoming, and Nietzsche has always championed the individual. Both Caesar and Brutus represent this struggle in different ways. Caesar for making his mark on world history through sheer power of will; Brutus for fiercely pursuing the directives of his soul, even to the detriment of his friend.

The true message of the play is not the death of Caesar, the nature of politics, monarchy versus republicanism, tyranny versus freedom, but about Brutus’ dilemma in choosing between his own ideals or the life of his benefactor. He chose the former, going against morality, and beyond good and evil.

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Nietzsche's FORGOTTEN Book (part 1)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 21:53:45 -0000

WATCH: Schopenhauer Explained: The World as Will and Representation
https://youtu.be/f-djIdl8WO4

Friedrich Nietzsche's Daybreak is probably the most underrated canonical work of the famous German philosopher. Overshadowed by Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Daybreak offers an overview of Nietzsche's main ideas in a way you might not have heard about them before. This first part covers the title of the book, Nietzsche's overarching project, and his love for the empirical presocratic philosophers (Democritus, Heraclitus, Anaximenes, Thales of Miletus) and his distaste for the idealistic philosophy of Plato and his World of Forms.

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Reading SCHOPENHAUER: Where to Start?

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 21:25:00 -0000

Download the cheatsheet: http://weltgeist.tv/schopenhauer
WATCH our videos on Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation here:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/i87hX_uznEQ
Part 2: https://youtu.be/jAeKylqj-Xg
Part 3: https://youtu.be/JamIJ2IQHe8
All parts in one video: https://youtu.be/f-djIdl8WO4
"Where do I start with Schopenhauer?" is a question that comes up a lot. Do you need to read Plato, or Kant? Or even Eastern philosophy? In this video we make a few recommendations.

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SCHOPENHAUER: Why Having Children is Wrong (Antinatalism)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 20:56:15 -0000

Antinatalism is the philosophical belief that assigns a negative value to birth. Antinatalists believe that having children is morally wrong and that one shouldn’t do it. There are a variety of possible ethical arguments to make, but the general tone of the antinatalist position is that existence itself has a negative value. In other words, that it’s better to not exist at all. If non-existence is preferable to existence, then it follows that it’s morally wrong to create new life and doom another being to a life of suffering.

This video is not about antinatalism in general. Rather, we’re taking a look at Schopenhauer’s position on this question. There seems to be a great misconception regarding Schopenhauer’s views on procreation.

There is this idea that Schopenhauer was not a complete antinatalist. One philosophy magazine, for example, called Schopenhauer a “proto-antinatalist.” While it’s definitely true that Schopenhauer directly influenced those philosophers who are most famously associated with antinatalism today, like Emil Cioran, in this video we want to argue that there is nothing half-baked about Schopenhauer’s antinatalism. In other words, we want to argue that Schopenhauer was a full-fledged antinatalist, even if the term did not exist at the time.

The two arguments presented in this video take us to the origin of suffering an Schopenhauer's ethical recommendations.

We take some ideas from Arthur Schopenhauer's main work, The World as Will and Rpepresentation, and read between the lines a bit to find out Schopenhauer's reasons for his anti-natalist views.

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NIETZSCHE: On Madness and Genius

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 20:27:30 -0000

A short video discussing an interesting section of Nietzsche's early work Daybreak. If you want more Nietzsche philosophy videos, we have entire series dedicated to Beyond Good and Evil, Daybreak, and the Genealogy of Morals. What is the role of the insane and the genius in society? Nietzsche provides an interesting answer.

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Why Did This Painting Offend Christians?

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 19:58:45 -0000

There's a 10 minute bonus video on this subject on Patreon, available right now. Support us:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

Caspar David Friedrich's Cross in the Mountains might seem like an innocent painting. It is what is says: a cross in the mountains.

But it sparked a huge debate culture war in Germany. The painting became the battleground for the so-called Ramdohrstreit, the Ramdohr Battle.

The painting was an altarpiece, yet it depicted a landscape. A huge faux pas: landscape painting was considered one of the lowest genres of painting. Totally unfitting for an altarpiece, which should show a historical scene (the crucifixion of Jesus) or an allegory for God (such as the Lamb of God).

The painting became a dividing line in a battle for the meaning of art. Neoclassicism versus Romanticism.

Should art conform to timeless, objective ideals, or can art also be transformative if it has a strong subjective effect?

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Arthur Schopenhauer on Noise (Misophonia)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 19:30:00 -0000

DOWNLOAD "ON NOISE" (free):
https://weltgeist.tv/noise

WATCH: Schopenhauer Explained: The World as Will and Representation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-djIdl8WO4

This is an appreciation video for Schopenhauer's underrated essay "On Noise", part of the Parerga and Paralipomena. We explore and appreciate this grumpy old man's disgust and irritation at all the noise and disturbances of living in the big city. Whips, crying children, barking dogs. Schopenhauer hated it all. But through his irritation and philosophical influence, he did become one of the first modern, Western philosophers to champion animal rights. How? Find out by watching this video, or reading the essay: https://weltgeist.tv/noise .

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Why Nietzsche Loved Napoleon

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:01:15 -0000

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NIETZSCHE: Will to Power - From Thus Spoke Zarathustra to Beyond Good and Evil (part 2)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:32:30 -0000

WATCH our in-depth video on the Will to Power in Beyond Good and Evil here:
https://youtu.be/2Ap9lkhHizU

PART 1:
https://youtu.be/0TbxTGwge-4

In this second part we go over Nietzsche's entire body of published work and trace how the concept of the Will to Power evolved throughout Nietzsche's intellectual career and philosophy.
We see how Nietzsche first thinks about power in The Joyful Science but how the term was first coined in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and how it gradually becomes an all-encompassing force by the time we get to works such as Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ. We will see how the main question in this series, "is the Will to Power a metaphysical force or a materialist or psychological drive?" is not so simple to answer.
In the third and final part we will conclude our series by looking at some contemporary interpretations of this notoriously difficult concept.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
01:35 The Joyful Science
03:22 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
05:38 Beyond Good and Evil
06:57 Twilight of the Idols
08:23 The Anti-Christ
10:15 Conclusion

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Stoicism: Was Seneca a Hypocrite?

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:27:16 -0000

Stoic philosopher Seneca was notoriously rich. Yet, in his writings, he never has a good word to say about luxury or riches. This tension between word and deed has been noticed even in Seneca's own time, when Martial gave the philosopher the mocking nickname "Seneca Praedives", or "Super-rich Seneca". In this video we explore a few ways to deal with this accusation of hypocrisy. We take a look at Nicholas Nassim Taleb's chapter on Seneca in his landmark work "Antifragile", as well as Seneca's own defense. Of course, there is an overarching question to be answered too - should we even care about hypocrisy in philosophers? Is it ethical to judge their writings by their deeds?

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CESARE BORGIA: Nietzsche’s Idol, Machiavelli’s Hero

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:03:45 -0000

Support us & get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

Videos mentioned:
Why Nietzsche Loved the Renaissance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oi4NIYPzmQ

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

In The Antichrist, Nietzsche speaks in raving terms about Cesare Borgia, the infamous Italian Renaissance warlord, ruthless conqueror, and, according to Machiavelli, brilliant strategist.

Nietzsche admired Cesare for his uncompromising morals, his will to power that saw him carve out his own path in life with no regard for conventional morality. Ruthless, ambitious, and living for the here and now, Cesare is mentioned both in The Antichrist as well as Beyond Good and Evil, with rare Nietzschean praise.

He dreams of seeing someone like Cesare Borgia in the papal seat, and in Nietzsche's alternative daydream version of history, that would've spelled the end of Christianity as we know it. A full frontal assault right in the center of the enemy: the most un-Christian man in the most Christian chair.

Instead, the Renaissance was destroyed, and Christianity was saved, by none other than Martin Luther. As Nietzsche quipped, he saved Christianity, and destroyed Europe.

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Why the Greeks Glorified Violence (And We Don’t)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:35:00 -0000

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

WATCH:
▶ Ancient Greece Was a Lot More Violent Than You Think. Here’s Why. https://youtu.be/a4cbNXGOa24

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

3D artwork of the shield of Achilles by Petros Haralampides - check out his work!
▶ https://www.artstation.com/petrosharalampides

Music:
"Shadowlands 3 - Machine"
"Oppressive Gloom"
by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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NIETZSCHE Explained: On the Genealogy of Morals - Introduction (pt. 1)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:24:32 -0000

WATCH: NIETZSCHE Explained: Beyond Good and Evil (all parts):
https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk

On the Genealogy of Morals is considered by many to be Nietzsche's masterpiece. It certainly is one of the more accessible works, as it (largely) lacks the poetry and allegory of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and is not as aphoristic as Beyond Good and Evil. On the Genealogy of Morals consists of three essays which will be tackled each in their own, separate video. This introductory video aims to provide a solid understanding by first asking the question: "What exactly is Nietzsche's genealogical method?" and situating the relevance of the Genealogy in the bigger Nietzschean corpus (namely: the transvaluation of all values and setting humanity up for a philosophy and morality of the future.)

This is a planned four-part series. If you want to be notified when the other parts are released, please consider subscribing. Leaving comments and liking the video is also greatly appreciated as it helps out the channel a lot.

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Why Nietzsche Didn't HATE the Stoics (It's Complicated)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:06:15 -0000

WATCH: Nietzsche Explained: Beyond Good and Evil (all parts):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIHXZUltfqk

Stoicism is becoming increasingly popular as a philosophy of life in the 21st century. Yet, another popular philosopher, Nietzsche, seems to take a big stand against Stoicism most notably in a famous passage in Beyond Good and Evil. The Stoic is accused of hypocrisy, of arguing in circles, and of denying life itself.

Yet this is not the whole picture. Aside from the famous passage in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche is more nuanced in other works, most notably The Gay Science (The Joyous Science) and his little-known work Daybreak.

In this video we take a look at Nietzsche's writings on Stoicism. We take a deeper look at a disturbing passage in Epictetus's Enchiridion, and we try to clear the fog a little bit: did Nietzsche hate the Stoics, or not? It will be seen that Nietzsche's view is more nuanced although he does have big problems with the Stoic philosophy.

Would Nietzsche prefer Caesar over Marcus Aurelius? Probably. Did he HATE Marcus Aurelius? Probably not.

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The ONLY Great Character in the Bible | Nietzsche

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 15:37:30 -0000

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
04:36 The Antichrist
06:46 The Quest for the Historical Jesus
17:23 The Buried Jesus
24:57 The Evasive Jesus
34:02 The traditional view
41:43 Nietzsche’s view

READ: Balthasar Gracian's Pocket Oracle and Art of Worldly Wisdom: https://amzn.to/3CdvRUk

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

Nietzsche's The Antichrist is a provocative book in many ways. Among its many controversial and heretical claims, there is one that stands out: Nietzsche says Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who oversaw the trial of Jesus and his crucifixion, is the only character in the New Testament worthy of honor.

Why is that? Because in Nietzsche's view, he enriched the New Testament "with the only saying that has any value"; his famous question to Jesus: "what is truth?"

For Nietzsche, this sentence is at once the destruction of Christianity. And in light of Nietzsche's later philosophy, it is also an indictment of philosophy itself.

First, Nietzsche has an idiosyncratic view of the person of Jesus and the composition of the Gospels. In short, he believes that much of the Gospels consists of additions and mythologizations by the disciples of Jesus, who, in their quest for revenge against those who crucified their Master, ascribed to Jesus attitudes and ideas that were absent in Jesus himself. Most notably, Jesus never speaks in terms of absolute truth but always exists in the strange space between yes and no, such as when he says to render undo Caesar what is Caesar's. But it's with the Apostles that terms like reward, punishment, saved versus damned, sinfulness versus blessedness... truth versus lie come into the fold. It's Nietzsche's conviction that Jesus never intended to start a religion or to relay dogma, but to bequeath to mankind a new way of life. His disciples however, greatly misunderstood him.

Hence Pilate's question, is at once a kind of pre-emptive destruction of what Christianity became under the influence of the Apostles: a new religion was created, with a set of dogmas to follow. Pilate pre-emptively sowed the seeds of its destruction with his quip, asking would-be Christians "what is truth?"

Second, Nietzsche sees in Pilate a fore-runner for himself. Pilate took a local, historical, political quarrel ("should I sentence this Jesus fellow or not?") and turned it into a philosophical quarrel. What is truth? For Nietzsche, this is a deeply profound statement, as Nietzsche more and more starts to question the value of truth itself, just like Pilate seemed to do 2000 years ago. For Nietzsche, the "will to truth" is the last "prejudice of the philosopher", the last unquestioned presupposition that we all uncritically accept as self-evidently true. It's worthwhile to pursue truth, that's what all philosophy tries to do, after all. But Nietzsche asks: is it really? Why do we prefer truth? Why not rather untruth? In this, he sees a kindred spirit in Pilate, who utters the only "philosophical phrase" in the whole New Testament, and for added dramatic effect, he asks the question to the personification of Truth himself: Jesus Christ.

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How to Become Evil | Nietzsche

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 15:21:49 -0000

Try Brilliant's tutor for free: https://brilliant.org/Weltgeist/ . You’ll also get 20% off an annual Premium subscription.

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT
▶ Follow us on X for updates: https://x.com/WeltgeistYT

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
02:25 Zarathustra’s Context
06:38 The Tropical Monster
18:07 The Hammer and the Sculptor
25:07 The Sipo Matador
34:54 Conclusion

MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO:
▶ Nietzsche's Warning to Scientists: https://youtu.be/Qy8Xof92OYQ
▶ Nietzsche on Cesare Borgia: https://youtu.be/V8PtXOEbnQo

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

A puzzling passage in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra speaks of the need for mankind to "become more evil." Did Nietzsche write this purely for shock value, or is there more to it? And how do we square this strange demand with Nietzsche's broader philosophical project of going BEYOND good and evil?

We go through three aphorisms from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil in order to answer these questions. Each illuminates a different aspect of what Nietzsche meant by the word "evil."

First, The Tropical Monster. Nietzsche argues that nature, morality and mankind are fundamentally misunderstood so long as we seek a defectiveness or morbidness in the "tropical growths", in the constitution and lives of so-called great men of action. He singles out Cesare Borgia as the prime example of what in his day was regarded as an evil man, possibly alluding to Jacob Burckhardt and his influential Civilization of Renaissance Italy, where the historian highlights the cruelty of Cesare's methods, cruelty that far exceeded the degree necessary for the achievement of his aims. Rather than viewing good/evil in a simple dichotomy, where the presence of one necessitates the absence of another, Nietzsche argues for a view where good and evil go together, as in the final analysis they are both about capability and power. Cesare Borgia is a "tropical growth", a force of nature. Those historians and contemporaries who call Cesare a monster, Nietzsche argues, are in favor of the "temperate zones" - in favor of mediocrity. Morals as timidity.

Second, the Hammer and Sculptor. The human being, for Nietzsche, is a conglomeration of different instincts and drives, always seeking their own expression. Becoming more evil (cruel) also implies being cruel towards your own lesser instincts, like how a sculptor fashions a statue from marble. Only in mankind's case, we are both marble and sculptor. We must sculpt away at our lesser instincts and seek to overcome them.

Third, tying both visions together, is the metaphor of the Sipo Matador, a strangler fig. A plant that grows by wrapping around a tree, climbing upwards, and using its host for support. Nietzsche urges his reader to confront the "hard truth" about the origin of so-called noble societies, saying that any aristocratic class has depended for its own sake upon the labor and existence of lower classes. Rather than talking about economics he analyses these societies psychologically; where the emergence of an aristocratic class necessitated a psychological mindset of those would-be nobles, the so-called pathos of distance, the ability and self-confidence to issue commands and wield power. Cultivating this type of power, from the outside looking in, will inevitable look cruel or evil, but if human society is to flourish, like the blooming flower of the Sipo Matador, such a mindset will be necessary.

Finally, all of this ties into Nietzsche's broader project of confronting ex

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How to Become Exceptional | Nietzsche

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 15:08:45 -0000

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Why Society Hates Intelligent People | Schopenhauer

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 14:40:00 -0000

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

READ: Balthasar Gracian's Pocket Oracle and Art of Worldly Wisdom: https://amzn.to/3CdvRUk

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

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Nietzsche: Why Complaining is for Weak People

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 14:19:05 -0000

To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/Weltgeist/ . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.

Support us on Patreon, get access to exclusive videos:
▶ https://www.patreon.com/WeltgeistYT

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

Nietzsche: Why Complaining is for Weak People

Suffering and Human Nature:
* Nietzsche acknowledges the ubiquity of suffering in human life, a theme central to many philosophical and religious doctrines. He critiques how different worldviews interpret suffering — from Christianity's promise of an afterlife for salvation to the pessimistic views of philosophers who see life as fundamentally negative.

The Strong vs. The Weak:
* For Nietzsche, the strong see suffering as a challenge to be overcome, a test of their will. They affirm life, embracing both joy and pain as part of existence. Conversely, the weak succumb to suffering, often by complaining or seeking solace in narratives that justify or blame external factors for their plight.

Resentment and Complaining:
* Nietzsche introduces the concept of "resentment" (or ressentiment), where the weak, unable to change their circumstances, resort to complaining as a form of imaginary revenge. This act of complaining provides a temporary sense of power, alleviating but not solving the underlying issues. He specifically critiques Christians and anarchists, seeing their ideals of equality as masks for this resentment.

Psychological Analysis:
* He argues that the weak invent value systems (like religious doctrines or social equality ideals) to cope with their powerlessness. These systems often preach equality not out of genuine belief in justice but as a way to level the playing field by pulling down the strong. This is a form of psychological self-deception, where the weak pretend to desire equality while secretly wishing to possess the power they criticize.

Life Affirmation vs. Complaint:
* Nietzsche contrasts complaining with his ideal of life-affirmation. He introduces the thought experiment of eternal recurrence from "The Joyful Science," where one must imagine living every moment of life, including its suffering, over and over. Affirming life in this context means loving every aspect, even the suffering, which requires immense psychological strength — an attribute of his concept of the Übermensch (Overman).

Conclusion:
* Nietzsche's philosophy suggests that complaining does not solve problems but rather reveals one's inability or unwillingness to face life's challenges head-on. Instead, he advocates for an active overcoming of obstacles, embracing life's hardships with a "Yes" to existence in all its forms, which he sees as the path to true power and self-mastery. This perspective is intended to push individuals towards a higher form of living, where one does not merely endure life but celebrates it.

In essence, Nietzsche's critique of complaining is not just about stopping the act but about transforming one's approach to life, from one of passive acceptance or resentment to active engagement and affirmation.

This video was sponsored by Brilliant.

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How to Understand Modern Art (with Arthur Schopenhauer)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 14:11:15 -0000

WATCH: Schopenhauer Explained: Aesthetics of Music and Nature:
https://youtu.be/JamIJ2IQHe8

Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract painting, and thought "what is this about?" This video is for you. We offer an interpretation of abstract painting using German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's theory of aesthetics. We compare two paintings, Jacques-Louis David's Oath of the Horatii, and Wassily Kandinsky's Composition 8. A look at Kandinsky's theoretical writings, in particular On the Spiritual in Art, will offer a solid interpretation of abstract painting that you might not have heard of before.

If you like this video, please share and like. It helps out the channel a lot. And if you've subscribed, thank you!

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NIETZSCHE Explained: Will to Power in Beyond Good and Evil (part 2)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 13:42:30 -0000

The Will to Power is one of the most famous concepts in Nietzsche's philosophy. In this video we will explore the concept as it appears in the work, Beyond Good and Evil. This is part two in a planned three-part series on Friedrich Nietzsche's 'Beyond Good and Evil' alone. If you want to know when the other parts come out, please subscribe.

Nietzsche's problem with the old philosophers of the past, such as Kant, Descartes, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer, continue. He accuses these philosophers not of having a will to Truth, but of having a will to Power. He then asks us the question: can this will to power explain the state of affairs in the world? Do we even need Christianity, or some complex “otherworldy” philosophy, like those of Schopenhauer, Spinoza, or Kant? What if the world is Will to Power — and nothing besides? What does that look like? This video explores Nietzsche’s tentative answer.

WATCH part 1 here:
NIETZSCHE Explained: Beyond Good and Evil (pt. 1):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG9Djq6PVK8

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NIETZSCHE: Three Types of Men (Rousseau, Goethe, Schopenhauer)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 13:16:21 -0000

“There are three Images of Man fashioned by our modern time, which for a long while yet will urge mortal men to transfigure their own lives…” – Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as Educator.

One of Nietzsche’s earliest writings are his so-called Untimely Meditations, a collection of essays that lack his later aphoristic and polemic style of writing. One of these essays, entiteld “Schopenhauer as Educator” is of considerable interest.

We will go over the essay in its entirety in another video. Please subscribe if you want to be notified when it comes out. The purpose of this video is to highlight an interesting typology Nietzsche proposes about halfway through.

Nietzsche distinguishes three types of men in the modern world. You could say they are archetypes of sorts: men who set an example that is worthy of being followed. Or are they stages individual men must go through? Nietzsche is not particularly clear on this point. Still, let’s take a closer look.

The Man of Rousseau is the first type. This type “has the greatest fire, and is most calculated to impress the people” – the Man of Rousseau is a revolutionary. Yet it also a deeply troubled soul, who feels estranged from the modern world.

Goethe’s Man is not angry nor dangerous. Goethe’s Man represents a renewed appreciation of Culture and history. Goethe’s Man is not a revolutionary.

Where the man of Rousseau seeks to change the world through revolutionary action, Goethe’s man appreciates the world as it is, including its history. Yet he remains troubled. You could say he appreciates art and culture only to distract himself from his own troubles. His life is culturally-minded, full of pleasure, yet it’s an existence going from desire to desire, fundamentally empty. He lacks passion and brute force.

The Man of Rousseau is passionate but lacks refinement and sophistication. Goethe’s Man is refined, cultured, and sophisticated. But lacks passion. Goethe’s Man needs to become angry.

The Schopenhauerian Man tells the truth, even if others around him don’t like it. The Schopenhauerian Man speaks to the universal, which greatly irritates common men who are only concerned with the particular.

Nietzsche praises the ideal of the Schopenhauerian Man, which is the same creature as the ascetic in Schopenhauer’s philosophy: the sage, the monk, the saint.

The Schopenhauerian Man is a true philosopher in that he is not concerned with wordly affairs. The Man of Rousseau seeks to change the world. Goethe’s Man tries to appreciate the world in order to forget his own suffering, and the Schopenhauerian Man embraces suffering, and turns away from the world.

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How Nietzsche Accidentally Discovered Dostoevsky

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 13:13:45 -0000

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OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche spends the entire final third of the book answering a single question: what is the meaning of ascetic ideals?

The ascetic ideal in Nietzsche's philosophy is the form that nihilism takes, it is that which promotes a movement away from the world, from the body, from the flesh, from our humanity. He sees this principle at work in every realm of human endeavor, from art to religion to philosophy and even modern science.

In this video we provide an overview of how the ascetic ideal - nihilism - finds its way into the artistic world through Wagner's Parsifal, into the religious domain through Christianity, in philosophy with Schopenhauer, and finally how even modern science, through Darwin and Copernicus and the like, provides a feeding ground for nihilism.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: Twilight of the Idols - The Weak Against the Strong (pt. 4)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 12:45:00 -0000

Twilight of the Idols PART 1: https://youtu.be/5r2IflhebzE
Twilight of the Idols PART 2: https://youtu.be/nFbgzoegVNA
Twilight of the Idols PART 3: https://youtu.be/k43MRQwxzBI

Twilight of the Idols is a notoriously difficult book because of its structure. It seems as if Nietzsche hops from one subject to the next, without a clear or logical method to his madness. In this video we will try to discover the common thread that runs throughout much of the work, so that you may hopefully read Twilight of the Idols with a fresh understanding.

The great antinomy in this work, is that of the weak versus the strong. If Twilight of the Idols sounds radical to our modern ears, it’s because of this theme of strong versus weak.

But what does Nietzsche mean when he uses those words?

Twilight of the Idols is full of criticism. Criticism of the modern age, criticism of Christianity, criticism of German culture, even attacks on individual writers such as Thomas Carlyle and Ernest Renan.

Throughout these attacks we can piece together a coherent picture of what weakness entails exactly, and then, of course, we can figure out what “strength” means.

It all starts with the world. Specifically, the material world as it is given to us. Nietzsche challenges us to engage with the world as it presents itself to us. No easy task, considering the rich tradition and history of being sceptical of the world. Christians, of course, disregard the material world in favor of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. And Western philosophy too, broadly speaking, has not much good to say about the world either…

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Why Goethe Matters and Where to Start Reading Him

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 12:16:15 -0000

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▶ All-In One Dramatization (free w/ trial: Werther, Faust, & more): https://amzn.to/48tHcTu
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▶ Also as audiobook (free with trial): https://amzn.to/4a3jzlR
▶ Faust performance on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qaogjXLdPow
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▶ Conversations with Goethe by Eckermann: https://amzn.to/48XAp4m

For Werther, Faust, Torquato Tasso, the Green Serpent, and more: get the dramatization audiobook.
For Faust, Wilhelm Meister, Torquato Tasso, poems, essays on science and nature: get the Essential Goethe book.
For a complete round-up: get Eckermann.

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
01:27 Life as a work of art
03:06 The Sorrows of Young Werther
06:22 Faust, Part One
12:59 Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
18:14 Torquato Tasso
19:04 The Green Serpent and the Beautiful Lily
20:05 Conversations with Goethe
21:14 Conclusion

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OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

At no cost to you, if you get an Audible Premium membership through the links posted here, I'll make a small commission. Thank you for supporting the channel!

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Nietzsche EXPLAINED: The Genealogy of Morals - Ascetic Ideals, Suffering, Will to Nothingness

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 12:13:38 -0000

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaDxR7zOymI
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud_3lkq_tAk
Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwoLPrywnqs

Welcome to the final instalment in our series on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. In this video, we arrive at the grand conclusion. Nietzsche explores the question: "What do ascetic ideals mean?" Throughout history and throughout different types of men: the artist (Wagner), the philosopher (Schopenhauer), the aesthete (Kant) but most importantly, the priest (Christianity) and the scholar (scientists like Darwin and Copernicus). Nietzsche will argue that a Will to Nothingness underpins the ascetic ideal: it gives meaning to our suffering. Because, as Nietzsche said it at the start: Man would sooner will nothingness, than not will at all.

Thank you so much for watching. If you found this video helpful, please consider liking and subscribing.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: Twilight of the Idols - Decadence and Socrates (pt. 2)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:47:30 -0000

Twilight of the Idols PART 1: https://youtu.be/5r2IflhebzE

One of the most elusive yet most frequently used words in Twilight of the Idols, is the word “décadence.” Interestingly, Nietzsche prefers to use the French term even though he sometimes uses German words like Verfall, Niedergang, or Entartung. In English, we can keep the French term, or use words like Degeneration or even Corruption.

In this video, we will take a deeper dive into this concept, specifically as it appears in Twilight of the Idols. This is part 2 in a planned series on this late work by Nietzsche. If you want to be notified when subsequent parts come out, please consider subscribing to the channel.

Broadly speaking, the term décadence denotes a process by which some entity becomes worse over time. If you stop working out and lifting weights, you will lose muscle mass, and we can say your muscles start degenerating.

Nietzsche uses the term to denote the process by which individuals, or even entire societies or time periods become worse, or, degenerate. Much of Twilight of the Idols is devoted to the description of how this process and works and what that means.

However, in true Nietzschean fashion, we never find a real definition or sustained analysis of what degeneration is exactly. It’s up to us, the readers, to piece things together and make a coherent picture out of disparate parts and fragments.

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EPICURUS: Four Steps to a Good Life (Epicureanism)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:18:45 -0000

Read Epicurus's Letter: http://weltgeist.tv/epicurus
Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived in the 3rd century BC. The philosophy named after him, Epicureanism, is based on actionable advice and typical Greek moderation. Commonly misunderstood as plain hedonism, Epicureanism offers adherents a good life in four steps. They are about the gods, good things, bad things, and even death. Epicureanism offers something of an alternative to Stoicism, even though both philosophies tend to use the same concepts, such as "ataraxia" and "aponia".

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PROMETHEUS: Find a Reason to Bear Suffering

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:10:54 -0000

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The Philosophy of Ghosts

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:50:00 -0000

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More on Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation:
▶ https://youtu.be/f-djIdl8WO4

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
04:18 The 19th century & the paranormal
12:34 Schopenhauer's supernatural experiences
16:43 Schopenhauer's philosophy and the paranormal
37:06 Dreams and ghosts
58:38 Ghosts and dreams
01:02:29 Magic and the end of philosophy

Schopenhauer was always fascinated with the paranormal. He had over 100 books on ghosts, magic, hypnotism, sleepwalking, dreams, etc. in his personal library.

This fascination he wisely kept out of his main work of philosophy, The World as Will and Representation, but in his collection of essays, we find a veritable philosophy of "spirit apparitions."

Schopenhauer is characteristically modest in this essay and offers a first step towards a more complete philosophy of the paranormal. Because he is convinced that belief in ghosts is innate in humans, and therefore, if a philosophy claims to explain the whole world and every possible experience, these human, all-too-human experiences must find a place in it also.

He makes a connection with dreams, and posits that ghosts could potentially have an ideal existence (ideal as in, from transcendental idealism) as opposed to a materialist or spiritualist existence.

How does that work? Through an organ in the brain that he calls the dream organ... Because dreams prove that the brain is capable of generating images without any external stimuli. In going to sleep, the brain switches between modes: it goes from dealing with the external world, to dealing with the internal world.

There is an in-between moment though, when this switch happens. And there is were ghost apparitions come in. You make the room dark and quiet, the brain directs energy away from the processes that take care of the external world, and it focuses on the internal world... Sometimes it can create visions, but imperfect ones: they have a dreamlike gauze, they disappear if you focus your eye on them, they have a translucent, ethereal sheen to them... Ghosts.

The subjective experience of seeing a ghosts is then mirrored in his philosophy because the subjective experience must have an objective counterpart in the Will. A ghost apparition then, requires two rare phenomena to occur together: two persons with strong connections to the world as Will who meet in the strange in-between zone of subjective and objective reality. How all of this works exactly, Schopenhauer isn't sure. But he is hopeful scientists of the future will figure it out...

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Nietzsche's Final Book - Or Is it?

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:21:15 -0000

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OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
03:20 An unlikely meeting
05:07 Nietzsche in Jena
09:16 The clergyman
11:44 My Sister and I
18:35 A Freudian slip
22:30 Edgy Nietzsche
23:42 Christian Nietzsche
25:45 Political Nietzsche
29:10 Should you read this book?
34:52 Conclusion

My Sister and I is an obscure book supposedly written by Nietzsche, published in 1951. So half a century after Nietzsche's death. Still, it caused quite a stir, with heated debates going back & forth over whether or not this book is authentic.

This video explores the crazy story of the manuscript, and how it ended up from a mental asylum in New York City.

The book is a counterpoint to Ecce Homo, Nietzsche's other work of biography. But here, the style is much more toned down. Nietzsche comes across as weak, a man completely exhausted by life, no power left, except to find rare moments of lucidity and write this book. Featuring thoughts on mortality, the afterlife, and shocking biographical revelations.

It also dabbles in Nietzschean philosophy. He claims he was wrong about Tolstoy and Schopenhauer, and above all, Jesus Christ. The book hints at a possible conversion of Nietzsche.

As a mirror-image of Ecce Homo, the book has some philosophical points to make. Mainly on the nature of good and evil, and the Christian faith. There is some critique of Karl Marx here as well (which is suspect, as Marx never appears directly by name in other writings by Nietzsche.) Other passages betray a Freudian influence.

A curious little work well worth reading for any Nietzsche enthusiast.

With music from Kevin MacLeod
http://incompetech.com

This video was sponsored by NordPass.

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Why Did Ancient Greeks Love to Lie?

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:08:10 -0000

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Introduction
01:16 The Greeks: A Bunch of Liars
03:21 The Greeks and Greek Civilisation (Burckhardt)
12:02 Oh, Those Greeks! (Nietzsche)
16:41 The problem of Plato

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

This video is sponsored by Imprint.

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NIETZSCHE Explained: Slave Morality in Beyond Good and Evil (part 3)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 09:52:30 -0000

WATCH:
NIETZSCHE Explained: Beyond Good and Evil (part 1):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG9Djq6PVK8

NIETZSCHE Explained: Will to Power in Beyond Good and Evil (part 2):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ap9lkhHizU

In this third and (for the moment) final part on Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, we explore the concept of slave morality. Particularly as it pertains to Christianity and Schopenhauer's philosophy. A lot of what is said in this video, is elaborated on in Nietzsche's subsequent work, On the Genealogy of Morals. If this video does well, we will release a full video on this seminal philosophical work.
Nietzsche's main critique on Christianity is that the Christian is weak; anti-life; unnatural. Why? Because the Christian (as does Schopenhauer) regards this world as not that important: it's a preparation for the afterlife. Christians think this because they are a powerless class, as opposed to the ancient Romans who were their historical enemies. The slave revolt in morals is a famous Nietzschean concept and appears together with "ressentiment" in full glory in On the Genealogy of Morals, but is alluded to in Beyond Good and Evil as well. In that way, this video serves as a good bridge between Beyond Good and Evil and Genealogy of Morals.

We highly recommend you watch the other parts in this series before watching this one.

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SCHOPENHAUER Explained: The World as Will and Representation (ALL PARTS)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 09:23:45 -0000

Arthur Schopenhauer is one of the most influential German philosophers. His philosophy of the Will has influenced thinkers and scientists such as Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and even Albert Einstein. In many ways, Schopenhauer will also anticipate existentialism. In this documentary on the philosophy of Schopenhauer, we take a deep dive into Schopenhauer's magnum opus: The World as Will and Representation. We look at Schopenhauer's metaphysical system, his indebtedness to Immanuel Kant, and his philosophy of the Will.

This video also explores Schopenhauer's ethics and focuses on two recommendations: compassion and asceticism. We also introduce the concept of "agape", or divine love. Schopenhauer's intense focus on the individual, could be seen in some ways as a precursor to the existentialism movement later in philosophy.

Thirdly: Schopenhauer has sometimes been called "the artists' philosopher" because of his lasting influence on art. Art, for Schopenhauer, is a way for us to forget our suffering, even for only a short time. And music was the most perfect means to do so. Lots of artists took Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory to heart and felt emboldened in the pursuit of their craft as a result. We also touch upon his rediscovery of the Platonic Ideas.

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Why Schopenhauer Hated Napoleon

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 09:05:27 -0000

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