The Philosophy Book

220 FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

everything of value in the world is
somehow “beyond” the reach of this
world leads to a way of thinking
that is fundamentally life-denying.
As a result of this Platonic and
Christian heritage, we have come
to see the world we live in as a
world that we should resent and
disdain, a world from which we
should turn away, transcend, and
certainly not enjoy. But in doing so,
we have turned away from life itself
in favor of a myth or an invention,
an imagined “real world” that is
situated elsewhere. Nietzsche calls
priests of all religions “preachers of
death”, because their teachings
encourage us to turn from this
world, and from life to death. But
why does Nietzsche insist that God
is dead? To answer this, we must

look to the work of the 18th-century

German philosopher Immanuel

Kant, whose ideas are critical to

understanding the philosophy

behind Nietzsche’s work.

A world beyond reach

Kant was interested in the limits

of knowledge. In his book Critique

of Pure Reason, he argued that we

cannot know the world as it is “in

itself.” We cannot attain it with the

intellect, as Plato believed; nor is it

promised to us after death as in

the Christian view. It exists (we

assume), but it is forever out of

reach. The reasons that Kant uses

to come up with this conclusion are

complex, but what is important

from Nietzsche’s point of view is

that, if the real world is said to be

absolutely unattainable—even to the

wise or the virtuous, in this world or

the next—then it is “an idea grown

useless, superfluous.” As a result, it

is an idea that we need to do away

with. If God is dead, Nietzsche is

perhaps the person who stumbles

across the corpse; nevertheless, it

is Kant whose fingerprints are all

over the murder weapon.

Philosophy’s longest error

Once we have dispensed with the

idea of the “real world”, the long-

held distinction between the “real

world” and the “apparent world”

begins to break down. In How the

“Real World” at last Became a Myth,

Nietzsche goes on to explain this

as follows: “We have abolished the

real world; what world is left? The

apparent world, perhaps? ... But

no! With the real world we have

also abolished the apparent world.”

Nietzsche now sees the beginning

of the end of philosophy’s “longest

error”: its infatuation with the

distinction between “appearance”

and “reality”, and the idea of two

worlds. The end of this error,

Nietzsche writes, is the zenith of

mankind—the high point of all

humanity. It is at this point—in an

essay written six years after Thus

Spake Zarathustra—that Nietzsche

writes “Zarathustra begins.”

This is a key moment for

Nietzsche because when we grasp

the fact that there is only one world,

we suddenly see the error that had

put all values beyond this world.

We are then forced to reconsider

all our values and even what it

means to be human. And when we

see through these philosophical

The Superman is someone of

enormous strength and independence

in mind and body; Nietzsche denied

any had existed, but named Napoleon,

Shakespeare, and Socrates as models.