Some Interesting Statements

A well-known anecdote associated with Nietzsche goes as follows: Nietzsche looks at a cow and asks why it is so happy. The cow seems to answer that it does not think about the past or the future, but simply lives in the present. By the time Nietzsche wants to recount the story, the cow has already forgotten it.

The idea behind the anecdote is more important than its literal form: the animal is not troubled by the human capacity to remember the past and contemplate the future. Human beings, by contrast, carry their past with them and continually project themselves into the future.

Übermensch is the term used by Nietzsche for the courageous human being who is capable of fully embracing life and creating new values for themselves.

For Nietzsche, the Übermensch is an ideal of a person who is capable of transcending themselves and creating new values. The concept is connected with Nietzsche's critique of existing moral values and with his idea of self-overcoming.

The Übermensch does not seek the meaning of life in an afterlife or in a Platonic world of ideas, but in life itself. The Übermensch is therefore not a biologically superior human race, as the concept is sometimes misunderstood, but a philosophical ideal rather than a biological or racial ideal.

“Man is a rope, tied between animal and Übermensch, above an abyss.”

This statement comes from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra), in the famous passage “On the Three Metamorphoses” (Von den drei Verwandlungen).

In this sense, the Übermensch can be understood as someone who does not attempt to escape existence through an afterlife or a predetermined metaphysical meaning, but instead takes the Earth and life itself as a starting point.

For Sartre, there is no predefined human essence or purpose. Human beings exist first and subsequently give shape to themselves and their lives through their choices and actions. In this sense, meaning does not precede life, but emerges within life itself.

Life has no predefined purpose; meaning emerges within life itself.

Kant's Remarks:

• Kant's view was that one cannot teach people philosophy; at most, one can teach them to philosophize.
• Kant described Enlightenment as humanity's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity. His famous call was: Sapere aude! — “Dare to use your own understanding.”