Talk:Friedrich Nietzsche/Archive 10

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Causes of Mental Breakdown

One person has claimed the cause of Nietzsche's illness was an undiagnosed brain tumor;

http://home.cfl.rr.com/mpresley1/fn.pdf

Thanks for the reference to this important article. However, it doesn't justify a categorical, unconditional declaration that he had a brain tumor. It does justify a hypothetical, conjectural statement.Lestrade 12:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Lestrade
This essay looks to be quite well-researched; any idea if it will be appearing in a peer-reviewed journal? Jlandahl 21:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

As the headers of the article's pages imply, it has already been published in the Journal of Medical Biography, Feb 2003, Vol. 11, p. 47-54. According to this, this journal "...maintains high academic standards... Papers are peer reviewed...". The article is a reliable source. We can use its summary as a part of our article here. --Dead3y3 Talk page 04:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I don't normally comment on this page, but this falls more into my area of expertise (see my user page) and I have to agree. First of all the journal is emminently respectable, and has a well-known board of editors, published by a reputable publishing house. The article itself seems well-referenced and clearly argued. Given the difficulties in retrospectively ascertaining the cause of death with absolute certainty, I would suggest that this paper be prominently cited. I would suggest that something stronger than "hypothetical, conjectural statement" is appropriate here, but we certainly cannot categorically argue that the previous interpretation is incorrect. I think the best thing is to provide the alternative diagnosis, and a short summary of the relevant factors that make syphilis unlikely. Edhubbard 10:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, Sax' article was the cause of my first edit and discussion on (German) wikipedia nearly three years ago. Back then, I was more favorable towards it than today, as now I have read many of the other sources. So I think it could be mentioned in the article, but also it should be mentioned that the gros of Nietzsche scholars would still argue for syphilis. In fact, Sax quotes very selectively e.g. from S.L. Gilman and esp. from Pia Daniela Volz' Nietzsche im Labyrinth seiner Krankheit, the standard work on Nietzsche's illness (unfortunately not available in English - very unfortunate indeed since in my experience, esp. American scholars do not read anything not published in English, so at least a little applause for Sax); Sax' hypothesis about N's outstanding eye is not at all visible in the photograph he gives nor any other, perhaps except for this one; and it remains a fact that 1) all the doctors who really treated Nietzsche more or less agreed on syphilis 2) people who have done more research on N's life than admiring youths and superficial biographers relying on Elisabeth's writings (and N's own writings) do agree that syphilis is not at all unprobable. N. was not a saint.--Chef aka Pangloss 13:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Why aren't the best-known biographers of Nietzsche mentioned in the article: Stefan Zweig, Curt Paul Janz and Werner Ross (Zweig's bio is an absolute classic)? In particular, the section about N's mental breakdown needs some editing. The grandiose delusions in Ecce homo´s chapters —"Why I Am So Clever", "Why I Am So Wise", "Why I Write Such Good Books", "Why I am a destiny"— are a classic example of pre-psychotic schizophrenic breakdown. Nietzsche also wrote there that he carried upon his shoulders mankind's destiny. That's why Zweig's biography is important and even more Alice Miller's psychobiography on N. These grandeur delusions are a far cry from syphilis symptoms.
In his 1949 book about N, Karl Jaspers didn't buy the syphilis hypothesis. And for Kurt Kolle (Nietzsche, Krenkheit un Werk in Aktuelle Fragen der Psychiatrie und Neurologie II, Bibliotheca Psychiatrica et Neurologica, 127 Basel/NY 1965) N's disorder was "manic-depressive oscillations" (bipolar disorder). —Cesar Tort 14:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems like a smear campaign. What a person dies of doesn't negate their genius. -Timeloss 13:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Others have claimed Nietzsche was already insane.

Others have claimed he was insane, then contracted syphilis which worsened his mental state.

Others, still, adhere to the conventional theory written in textbooks that Nietzsche was merely an eccentric who caught syphilis, in particular, neurosyphilis, which causes paralysis, and the various biological manifestions via the pupils, language and behaviour, which clearly indicate this condition, which appears as dementia in Nietzsche (see; David Farrell Krell, and Donald L. Blates (1997). "The Good European: Nietzsche's Work Sites in Word and Image"). Syphilis is a degenerative disease which stays in the body for up to five decades, explaining much of Nietzsche's behaviour. Claims that Nietzsche was already insane is the minority view of a few academics who are refusing to allow two sides of the debate on this website.

Warning: Professional psychiatrists similarly categorized Ted Kaczynski as a paranoid schizophrenic, to ensure they wouldn't have to take his ideas seriously. The sad fact is that Nietzsche was an outsider whose beliefs were antithetical to mainstream belief; because of that, highly-socialized people who felt threatened by his ideas had to label him as mad. However, people don't write philosophy at Nietzsche's level simply because they've come down with syphilis; I imagine 19th-century German philosophy would have been a lot more interesting if that were so. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Nietzsche's scatological breakdown

User:Mtevfrog just reverted this—:

In the 1889 diary for insane people in the Jena clinic, a report states that Nietzsche frequently covered himself with excrement and that he even ate his own excrements. (Ross, Werner (1989). Nietzsche: el águila angustiada [original title: Der ängstliche Adler: Friedrich Nietzsches Leben]. Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós. pp. page 829. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help))

—stating in edit summary: "I don't think this is necessary to the article".

It's not a matter of what you "think" or not, Mtevfrog. Nietzsche had a classic psycho breakdown and you guys are speculating about "syphilis" and brain "tumors". The crude facts of N's biography must be known to the wiki readership. I repeat: have you read the above-cited biographers of N? Curt Paul Janz alone devoted the entire IV volume of his monumental bio to N's psycho breakdown and I have read it.

Unless you give me a valid reason of why the symptoms of N's disorder must be hidden from this article I will reinsert the above info again.

—Cesar Tort 16:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Mtevfrog and now RJC's removal of this detail. Many people's final illnesses are accompanied by disgusting symptoms, but they aren't necessary for understanding a person's life and work. There's no mention in the James Garfield article of the beef-bouillon enemas that the doctors used when he couldn't keep food in his stomach, for example. There have been differences of opinion about what Nietzche's breakdown was (tumor, schitzophrenia, syphilis), but this detail doesn't bear on that, either - it could have been caused by any of them. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 08:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

User:RJC wrote in edit summary: "removed sensationalistic trivia: not every true detail is relevant."

You guys are wrong!

I inserted the sentence just as a first step to edit the article about many more clinic details of N's conduct which demonstrates that N was psycho as hell: not the victim of syphilis or tumors as some editors believe. Coprophagia is a well-known behavior of a terminal stage in schizophrenic patients. I quote from page 425 Silvano Arieti's book Interpretation of Schizophrenia:


So it's not sensationalistic trivia: clinical data of N's breakdown is relevant to understand more than a decade of his regressive mental state. Failing to mention his scatological habits —censorship actually— can only help those who want to embellish N's life by imagining the relatively less grotesque condition of syphilis, etc.

If I don't see any valid reason explaining why his regressive behavior shouldn't appear in article, I'm afraid I will have to revert again.

—Cesar Tort 15:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not here for you to 'demonstrate that N was psycho as hell.' See original research. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 16:58, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Grasping their own faces? You mean feces.Lestrade 17:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

Thanks for the correction. I don't want to demonstrate any OR; just mention that N's symptoms have been considered by some biographers as psycho symptoms. (BTW, I didn't use "psycho as hell" in the sentence that was removed.) Why shouldn't N's psycho symptoms be revealed in article? Is that something that the article must silence? If so, why? They reveal the nature of N's mind after all. —Cesar Tort 18:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

In a nutshell, since several serious biographers mention details of N's psychiatric state shouldn't we do the same? —Cesar Tort 23:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Cesar Tort seems to be the only editor in favor of including this information. Some details of a person's life no doubt reveal things about them, but many such details are interesting only to those engaged in research on the subject. What does this fecal information convey? No one reading an encyclopedic entry on Nietzsche has navigated to that page because they want to know whether he is among the s&*t-eating philosophers: classing him among them because it suggests that he was insane does not therefore serve an informational purpose so much as a polemical one. The fact that Cesar Tort has carefully insinuated that Nietzsche should be disdained, without needing recourse to the phrase "psycho as hell" in the article itself, does not mean that he has kept within either the spirit or the letter of NPOV or NOR. Here is a question: does this information have value apart from what it insinuates, or the fact that it is salacious? I do not think so, and two other editors already expressed their opposition to it. I believe this is the beginning of Consensus. RJC Talk 06:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • "The fact that Cesar Tort has carefully insinuated that Nietzsche should be disdained"

I don’t know what you mean. N used to be my favorite philosopher when I was a teenager.

  • "Here is a question: does this information have value apart from what it insinuates, or the fact that it is salacious?"

As stated above, my intention was to show that the picture you see about N in the biographies by Zweig, Janz, Ross and Miller is that of a psychiatric breakdown, not of a somatic disease. If I mentioned the coprophagia stuff it was to show that his mental symptoms were terrible indeed —very different behavior from tumor or syphilis symptoms. This way the reader is not misled by a bioreductionist interpretation (tumor or syphilis).

If you want to censor the coprophagia phrase, it’s ok with me but that’s not consensus: it’s called false consensus. I added a phrase about N’s "commanding the German emperor to go to Rome in order to be shot and summon the European powers to take military action against Germany" because it furthers the view of N’s breakdown as a typical schizo breakdown (unlike people suffering from florid psychoses, syphilis patients usually don’t have these sort of grandeur delusions).

My time to edit in Wikipedia is limited. I would recommend you guys to take a look at Stefan Zweig’s biography on N, which I referenced in article today. Walter Kaufmann considers Zweig’s study as unsurpassed in the psycho-biographies about N.

—Cesar Tort 16:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Alright, this probably has nothing to do with the relevance of excrement to Nietzsche's life, but a thing's being indicative of a psychiatric breakdown does not preclude the presence of disease. In particular, Syphilis can become Neurosyphilis, one of the symptoms of which is general paresis of the insane. The articles which deal with them note that "psychiatric abnormalities such as personality changes" are common. "Patients generally have progressive personality changes, memory loss, and poor judgement. More rarely, they can have psychosis, depression, or mania." So, Nietzsche's would not be a common progression, but his symptoms also fall well within typical patterns of syphilis. But again, this sort of debate would be relevant if our job were to determine the cause of Nietzsche's breakdown. RJC Talk 17:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
My point was merely to show that the above biographers, which you guys seem not having read —correct me if I'm wrong— give the picture of a tremendous mental warfare in N's head. They speculate this caused the breakdown. I'm not trying to push any OR (grandeur delusions are uncommon in syphilis patients, etc). I just have read the above biographies and I can see that the authors' depictions of N's condition aren't mentioned in the article. It's just that simple. Yes: Janz and Ross are available in German (and Spanish translations) only. That's why I pointed out to Zweig's study: it's available in the libraries of English-speaking countries. It's amazing though that the data of an important study such as Curt Paul Janz's Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie. Dritter Band. Die Jahre des Siechtmus, the fourth volume of his work, which deals mainly with almost twelve years of N's mental condition, is unmentioned in the article. —Cesar Tort 18:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

@Cesar Tort: I think you are right in promoting Janz' and Ross' biographies which seem to be the best ones available, but you should not misquote them. Both Janz and Ross more or less agree on progressive paralysis / neurolues due to syphilis which, by the way, also Jaspers took as "fast gewiß" (quoted by Janz). Of course all good biographers present or speculate on other hypotheses and concede that there is no absolute clarity on this issue. Also, I do not think that the approaches of Zweig and especially Miller, who has been ridiculed, are as important as you present them. If you are really interested in Nietzsche's illness(es) and the history of their reception, and as you seem to be willing and able to read German books, I repeat my suggestion to read Pia Daniela Volz' Nietzsche im Labyrinth seiner Krankheiten. Among many other things, it gives a complete reprint of the Jenaer Krankenreport from which you got the coprophagia story (which is not a sensation, it was published for the first time in the early 1930s).--Chef aka Pangloss 16:14, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Chef aka Pangloss. It's not my intention to misrepresent Ross or Janz. It was from Ross whom I extracted the info cited above:

In his 1949 book about N, Karl Jaspers didn't buy the syphilis hypothesis. And for Kurt Kolle (Nietzsche, Krenkheit un Werk in Aktuelle Fragen der Psychiatrie und Neurologie II, Bibliotheca Psychiatrica et Neurologica, 127 Basel/NY 1965) N's disorder was "manic-depressive oscillations" (bipolar disorder).

Of course, he cites progressive paralysis as well. However, Ross states on page 832 of my copy that the nonprofessional like him —i.e., a non-psychiatrist— simply cannot pronounce judgment about which diagnosis is the right one.
Janz mentions many theories as well: paralysis progressiva, Paul Julius Möbius long work on the pathology of N (syphilis) and Karl Jaspers, which doubted such diagnosis. Then Janz recounts dozens of recorded anecdotes of N's last twelve years, which sometimes suggest a catatonic condition. Janz's book is a mine of curious anecdotes to understand N's regressive disorder. It reminds me very strongly the regressive stages of a typical psycho breakdown.
  • "I do not think that the approaches of Zweig and especially Miller, who has been ridiculed, are as important as you present them."
I stated above that Walter Kaufmann wrote in his study of N that Zweig's psychobiography is still unsurpassed, and obviously Kaufmann's is a reliable opinion on this subject.
As to Miller, can you tell me where has she been ridiculed about her brief psychobiography of N? Are you talking about the journalist Ron Rosenbaum's book on Hitler?
—Cesar Tort 01:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Miller: I had in mind an essay in a book by Peter Haffner, Die fixe Idee, and a short rebuff in Andreas Urs Sommer's (Swiss N / philosophy scholar, German wikipedia article) voluminous commentary on N's Antichrist. Both find Miller's reading of Nietzsche (and others) extremely over-simplified. Btw, a more complete collection of "anecdotes" about N's years of illness is Sander Gilman's Begegnungen mit Nietzsche. I am sorry I have to rely on books in German language.--Chef aka Pangloss 15:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, Pangloss. I will use it in my own writing on N. —Cesar Tort 21:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Nationality

There have been concerted efforts at describing Nietzsche as a "German" in the lede of the article. From the Manual of Style:

Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable. Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability.)

As no reliable sources have been asserted as to Nietzsche's citizenship, I am replacing the current version of the article, which is a gross simplification, with the previous version which has a lengthy note explaining in detail the complexity of the situation. Skomorokh incite 19:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted the introductory paragraph, which was worded to avoid saying that Nietzsche was a German and justified this avoidance with a footnote. This is because Nietzsche was a German by every measure by which we call other people Germans at the same time. Nietzsche may have considered himself something more, may have distanced himself from a German identity, but these stances on his part were necessary only because he was in fact German: no Frenchman had to distance himself from German identity in the same way. The arguments against calling him a German seem to be philosophically motivated, when what a reader is looking for from the first paragraph is a vague sense of where he lived and what language he spoke. "Continental" does not get this information across, and indeed seems to emphasize that he was a continental philosopher rather than an analytic philosopher. RJC Talk 19:26, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree with your view on the inadequacy of "continental", when piped to continental philosophy, but you have offered no proof of citizenship as is required for asserting nationality (per above). Potentially deceiving people about the basic facts of the subject is hardly any way to start an encyclopaedia article. I am changing the "Continental" to European, which gives a vague but entirely accurate sense of where he lived and what languages he spoke. I cannot understand the removal of the footnote, which clarifies matters very well, in any case. Skomorokh incite 19:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Wow. I made the edit, said I would explain it on the talk page, and before I even finish writing the explanation it's reverted! I wonder ... How could he have known that the reason for my change was without merit without reading the justification that I promised would follow while making it? I wonder if the fact that in Skomorokh'ssignature the link to his user talk page is "incite" offers any clue. (The order of the comments here does not follow the order of the edits made to the main page)
In any case, if something requires explanation, it belongs in the body of the text, not in a footnote. And while the complexities of Nietzsche's nationality could conceivably be a topic within the article, it is certainly tangential enough to leave out of the opening paragraphs. In those paragraphs, where we are giving a short summary of a complex issue, some simplification is bound to occur, and we should learn to live with it.
Update: Just checked the talk page while writing this, and it turns out that Skomorokh has already drafted his reply. To his points: calling Nietzsche "German" is not deceptive, or potentially deceptive. Saxony and Prussia, the places of his ancestry and birth, were German. Were anyone asked at the time to categorized someone from these places (outside of what became Germany), they would have called him a German. On the contrary, it is the push to refuse to call Nietzsche a German that seems to the greater probability of misleading a reader who just wants to know a little bit more about Nietzsche, some guy the reader's heard about and has some interest in. "German" gets information across that "European" does not. As to the suggestion that European gives some vague sense of his life and language, I think it gives too vague of a sense.
As to the bit about the Manual of Style, could Skomorokh be more specific about where he is getting this? It is not on WP:Style or WP:Lead. RJC Talk 19:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I apologise, I saw your edit summary "Restored Nietzsche's nationality. See Talk", went to the talkpage to see what you were referring to, and found no discussion of what Nietzsche's nationality should be stated as, so I started one. I apparently misinterpreted "See Talk" as you saying that the talkpage justified your edit, which at the time it did not. The Manual of Style reference is taken verbatim from WP:MOSBIO. Until it is proven here that Nietzsche was a German citizen, any assertion of notability is POV. Perhaps the nationality footnote should be accommodated into the text, but it was originally created to keep the lede concise. I agree European is too vague, but it's as specific as we can verifiably get at this stage. Regards, Skomorokh incite 20:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the information. The policy seems to support calling Nietzsche a German, however. Looking to WP:MOSBIO, one of the two paradigms they give is Petrarch, whom it calls "an Italian scholar, poet, and early Renaissance humanist." Obviously, "Italian" cannot refer to citizenship, as there was no Italian state at the time. The MOS says that nationality is to be noted in the opening paragraphs, saying that in the normal case this will be determined by citizenship. Nietzsche is clearly not a normal case, having renounced his Prussian citizenship. He is analogous to Petrarch, however, in having lived before there was a Germany; we have no difficulty calling Petrarch an Italian even though there was no Italy. Because nationality is not identical with citizenship, however, we can call people Germans and Italians in the absence of states. There isn't really a problem in terms of NPOV or verifiability, here. The question is rather this: Shall we call someone who was born in Prussia, held Prussian citizenship from birth, joined the Prussian artillery regiment and served in the Prussian army during the Franco-Prussian war — all of this as Prussia was about to declare itself the German Empire — and who spoke and wrote in German, a German? The pages for Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Goethe, ad infinitum, all call their subjects Germans, even though every single last one of them died before there was a German citizenship to be had. This suggests a strong consensus on how the policy is to be put into practice. Since the official policy suggests that Nietzsche should be called a German, and other biographical entries dealing with subjects in analogous situations do not hesitate to call people German, I will therefore restore Nietzsche's nationality to "German." RJC Talk 20:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
The problem with dubbing Nietzsche "German" tout court arises from specific changes in the meaning of the term "German" -- changes which just happened to coincide with Nietzsche's career. -- Prior to 1871, "German" could refer to a vaguely-defined cultural agglomeration in central Europe or to the use of the German language. In this sense Kant and Hegel and Goethe etc count definitively as "German" -- with no ambiguity, just as Petrarch counted as Italian. -- But in 1871 the culmination of German nationalism and state-building occurred with the formation of the German Empire (the second Reich). The word "German" thereafter came more specifically to refer to citizens of said Empire. Prior to 1871, you could call the King of Prussia a German monarch; after 1871 you could still use the same words ("German monarch") but they had come to mean something somewhat different. Outside the borders of the new empire, for example, Austrian German-speakers became less definitively "German" after 1871. And Nietzsche, who lived "outside" mainly in Switzerland and Italy, took no part in the new and increasingly important aspect of Germanness. -- I don't see speaking of Nietzsche as "German" as wrong -- just very ambiguous and potentially misleading under the circumstances. Hence the attempt to by-pass the nationality-issue altogether in the overview/opening paragraph, while providing detail (ancestry/birth/citizenship/residence/statelessness/internationalism) elsewhere -- in a footnote or in some subsequent section. The WP:MOSBIO guidelines (not policy) on nationality don't appear to apply very well in this particular case, so let's show some boldness in departing from them. -- I see another minefield/issue in referring to Nietzsche as a "German philosopher" in the opening -- this appears to pile ambiguity on ambiguity. It may imply the possible existence of a distinctively German form of philosophy (possible, but arguable) and of Nietzsche's membership in the mainstream of that philosophical school/strand (just possible, but even more arguable, I suspect). Hence my clumsy and premature attempt to dub Nietzsche a "Continental philosopher", which just led to a different ambiguity-error. -- Let's avoid the confusion, omit any mention of specific nationality in the opening paragraph, and spell out the details at leisure and in a more balanced manner elsewhere. -- Pedant17 01:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that there is a lot of ambiguity involved in discussing nationality, but the Wikipedia community has already decided how to handle it, as evidenced by the policy and its implementation on other pages that would face the same problem. Just check the pages linked to on Category:19th century German philosophers. Wikipedia's admonishment to Be bold concerns facts, grammar, etc., not policy. I don't think removal of Nietzsche's nationality is warranted in this case. RJC Talk 23:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
We appear to have agreement on the existence of an ambiguity issue -- but not on the best way of handling it. The Wikipedia community has developed guidelines on how to introduce a subject's nationality, but WP:MOSBIO remains a guideline: not a policy. To quote from WP:MOSBIO: "...guidelines for maintaining visual and textual consistency. Adherence to the following guidelines is not required; however, usage of these guidelines is recommended...The opening paragraph should give: ... 3. Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable. Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability.)" -- Note the phrasing: "in the normal case". Nietzsche does not fall into the normal case, and his article may profit from special treatment. -- Note too one of the paradigmatic examples given in WP:MOSBIO for an opening: "Cleopatra VII Philopator (December 70 BC/January 69 BC - c. August 12, 30 BC) was a queen of ancient Egypt. She was the last member of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty to rule Egypt" No nationality here: only a passing reference to ethnicity. Special cases seem to call for special bending of the guidelines... I suggest that my fellow-Wikipedians might like to follow the policy (rather than the guideline) of ignoring all rules with a view to collaborating on the improvement of the introduction to this article. -- The suggestion that we should compare the pages linked to Category:19th century German philosophers begs the question as to whether we can appropriately refer to Nietzsche as a "German philosopher". A more appropriate comparison might involve comparing the treatment of the nationality-issue in the opening paragraphs of articles linked to Stateless person, where we currently find a section devoted to "Famous stateless/formerly stateless people" and linking to: Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche (yes: our subject!), Elie Wiesel, and Anne Frank. For that matter, many emigrants/immigrants have fluctuating/uncertain citizenship, and Nietzsche forms no exception. -- The Wikipedia call for boldness in WP:BOLD "is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception". Moreover, it encourages boldness in "mak[ing] sure the wording is accurate, etc." -- precisely the focus of our discussions on Nietzsche's label as "German". -- I quite agree that we should not remove discussion of Nietzsche's nationality (Prussian, then stateless). Nor should we shy away from Nietzsche's background in the German-speaking cultural tradition. Rather: we should treat the matter with the detail and accuracy it merits -- and we face difficulties doing that within the brief compass of the opening sentence of the article. Hence the suggestions of placing the details in a footnote or later in the main body of the article's text. -- Pedant17 06:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Werner Ross’ thick biography (865 pages in the Spanish translation), Der angstliche Adler: Friedrich Nietzsches Leben starts with Karl Ludwig Nietzsche, N’s father, happy in Röcken because N had been born on 15 October 1844 —the very birthday celebration of the king Wilhelm. So he named N Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, states Ross. —Cesar Tort 20:50, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
The notion that the entry should not begin by describing Nietzsche as a German philosopher is absurd. Despite all the arguments by the accurately-monikered user Pedant17, nothing could be more clear than that Nietzsche is a German philosopher, that he should be described as such, and that he is described as such in every relevant text. It is time for Pedant17 to end this campaign, on the grounds that support for describing Nietzsche as anything other than a German philosopher in the opening of the article is distinctly lacking. BCST2001 01:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
You have just asserted your opinion without providing any argument in favour of it. Please avoid unconstructive statements and engage with the issues discussed so that we may move towards consensus. Skomorokh incite 18:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Skomorokh, I understand what you are saying. However: I consider the fact that no texts have been cited describing Nietzsche as anything other than a German philosopher to be an argument in favor of describing Nietzsche as a German philosopher. I consider the fact that Pedant17 has been conducting a longstanding and persistent campaign to remove the description of Nietzsche as a German philosopher, while receiving virtually no support, to be an argument against Pedant17's position (and for the greatest part of that campaign Pedant17 has made no attempt to seek consensus or argue his case). Without supporting references, and without support from other users, Pedant17 ought, in my opinion, drop the campaign. To Pedant 17: name an encyclopedia that begins its entry on Nietzsche by describing him as anything other than a German philosopher, and find some supporters for your position, or accept there is no consensus for the position for which you are arguing. BCST2001 18:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
No citations currently exist in the article to suggest that one should label Nietzsche as a "German philosopher" or not a "German philosopher. I realize that one could readily find a quotation justifying the phrase "German philosopher". But the issue in the opening sentence of the opening paragraph remains one of clarity and unambiguous accuracy. I summarized the facts as I see them thus: 'Nietzsche had Saxon ancestry, Prussian birth, Swiss residence, declared statelessness and an international intellectual outlook/influence: he never held citizenship of the German Empire; and he wrote philology and belles lettres alongside philosophy. Labelling him a "German philosopher" (as sometimes happens) would seem overly simplistic.' We can refine citations for each of the stated facts as required. -- I never realized that I had conducted a campaign on this matter -- I thought I simply persistently tried to improve the accuracy of the article from time to time, placing relevant information before readers so that the article could avoid simplistic formulations which might risk violating the WP:NPOV neutral point-of-view. I realize that crude categorization into little boxes labeled "Nationality" occurs commonly, but I had hoped that a modern and comprehensive encyclopedia such as Wikipedia could avoid such pitfalls. -- Naming a tertiary source, "an encyclopedia that begins its entry on Nietzsche by describing him as anything other than a German philosopher" would not alter the internal force of the argument against making simplistic labeling prominent in the opening sentences. And I have no objection to seeing Nietzsche described as a "German philosopher" within the article -- provided we define our terms and note the countervailing facts on this matter as well. -- But quite apart from that, I did come across a couple of reference works which discuss Nietzsche without apparently feeling the need for nationality-labeling: see Edward Craid (editor): The Shorter Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy Abingdon: Routledge, 2005, pages 726-741; and Simon Blackburn: The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 252-253. -- I happily accept that no WP:Consensus currently exists for the sort of wording that I advocate. Hence the need for some painstaking analysis and discussion in this Talk-page, leaving aside mere spirited assertions, and sticking to facts. -- Pedant17 06:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'M NO EXPERT BUT DIDNT HE CONSIDER HIMSELF POLISH?: There were two other children in the house. One was a boy, Josef, who was named after the Duke of Altenburg, and died in infancy in 1850. The other was a girl, Therese Elisabeth Alexandra, who became in after years her brother's housekeeper, guardian angel and biographer. Her three names were those of the three noble children her father had grounded in the humanities. Elisabeth - who married toward middle age and is best known as Frau Förster-Nietzsche - tells us practically all that we know about the Nietzsche family and the private life of its distinguished son. ((1)) The clan came out of Poland, like so many other families of Eastern Germany, at the time of the sad, vain wars. Legend maintains that it was noble in its day and Nietzsche himself liked to think so. The name, says Elisabeth, was originally Nietzschy. "Germany is a great nation," Nietzsche would say, "only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.... I am proud of my Polish descent. I remember that in former times a Polish noble, by his simple veto, could overturn the resolution of a popular assembly. There were giants in Poland in the time of my forefathers." He wrote a tract with the French title L'Origine de la famille de Nietzsche and presented the manuscript to his sister, as a document to be treasured and held sacred. She tells us that he was fond of maintaining that the Nietzsches had suffered greatly and fallen from vast grandeur for their opinions, religious and political. He had no proof of this, but it pleased him to think so. http://www.geocities.com/danielmacryan/nietzsche1.html#para0 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.163.88 (talk) 04:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought: I am the last one to disagree that calling N a "German philosopher" is over-simplistic, but so is calling Goethe a German writer, or Shakespeare an English poet, or da Vinci an Italian polymath. But: They all come without a description and a footnote that not only again prolongs the legend of Polish ancestry (read Radwan coat of arms for the Let's-bet-it's-not-the-last-attempt to get this out of "My-primary-research-base-is-called-Google"-heads) but also gives some utterly marginalic facts to frighten and confuse readers and does little to clear up the simplification by referring to phrases as undefined as "belles lettres" or, again, over-simplistic as "German cultural tradition". I mean, I recognize the problem, but this solution is in no way better. The text you try to improve is an introduction to an encyclopedia article, perhaps it cannot solve a problem on which you could write a book?--Chef aka Pangloss 03:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

For Goethe in his capacity as a writer (as opposed to a scientist and a philosopher) the importance of form and his use of the German language and the non-existence of a definitive German nation-state in his lifetime mean we can readily refer to him as a "German writer" -- despite the vagueness of the term "German cultural tradition". Shakespeare unambiguously straddles English-language-writing and English citizenship: I see no dispute in labeling him "English", though I agree that "poet" scarcely does him full justice, Da Vinci parallels Nietzsche in his internationalism and lack of a modern-equivalent nation-state to belong to: surely we think of him in terms greater than just "Italian" -- Renaissance man, European artist and inventor, archetypal great Florentine.. -- Thanks for the reference to the interesting and convincing details in Radwan coat of arms. I conclude from them that we can note in passing the legend of Polishness, if only as an insubstantial Nietzsche family tradition, only incidentally undermining any idea of any self-perception Nietzsche's part as monoculturally German/Prussian/Saxon. -- I would happily exclude reference to "the German cultural tradition" in the opening sentence, shearing the article-head of any simplistic controversial nationalistic/ethnic/cultural references. But we do need, I feel, to portray somewhere (perhaps decently hidden in an obscure footnote) the issues of Nietzsche's (non-)nationality and (perhaps somewhere else) his transcendence as a writer of the merely philosophical. -- Pedant17 01:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by a writer of the "merely philosophical," considering that Nietzsche's conception of the philosopher is among highest human types, if not the highest. I don't think that Nietzsche shared your disdain for philosophy, especially as he refused to sully the category with such "laborers" as Kant and Hegel. As to omitting all reference to Nietzsche's nationality in the opening sentence, the Manual of Style Biography page is quite explicit on this point. And, as I noted when we went over this last month, one of its paradigmatic examples involves a situation similar to this one; none of the other pages referring to German-ish persons living at the foundation of the German Empire seems to have a problem with calling them Germans. They certainly don't have to defend the opening sentences against the sort of alterations which are episodically attempted regarding Nietzsche. RJC Talk 18:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Nietzsche worked as a philologist before he veered into more philosophical paths. The opening paragraph could reflect that fact as well -- and not "merely" his designation as a philosopher. -- The proposed omission of reference to Nietzsche's nationality (or better: his lack of a conventional official nationality during the most productive period of his career) serves merely as an attempt to avoid distortion and to allow expression of various viewpoints on the matter to take place elsewhere in a less confining and less strictly limited environment. The Wikipedia Biography Manual of Style (a mere guideline) does not explicitly demand a nationality for every biography: indeed, it acknowledges that exceptions will exist: Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable...). The "normal case" implies the existence of non-normal cases, and Nietzsche exemplifies the non-normal case: a self-exiled stateless person who talked up his imagined Polish ancestry while watching his native turf amalgamate into a new pan-North-German state. -- The paradigmatic example of Petrarch in the Wikipedia Biography Manual of Style does not provide a good analogy for Nietzsche's situation. Much of Petrarch's fame and significance for posterity relates to his cultivation of the Italian language at a time when it had little status -- that constitutes his chief claim to classification as an "Italian". Petrarch's lifetime did not see the formation of an Italian nation-state to which national labels became attached. Nietzsche's lifetime saw the forging of such a state in the German linguistic area; but Nietzsche himself did not become a citizen of that state, and continued to live outside it during his productive peak and prior to his mental collapse. In this he acted differently from many of his contemporaries, other "German-ish persons living at the foundation of the German Empire" (the very word "German-ish" expresses some of the ambiguity). All such persons have now died and do not have to defend anything. But the way in which Wikipedia treats some of the German émigrés of the period may provide instructive hints. Max Müller, who spent most of career outside of Central Europe, appears in his Wikipedia article as "a German philologist and Orientalist -- with "German" linked to German Confederation -- a somewhat unsatisfying attempt to make him German yet not a German of Germany. And Karl Marx (born like his fellow-philosopher and fellow-Germanophone Nietzsche on Prussian-acquired soil), appears simply as "a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary" -- with no mention of anything to do with matters German in the opening paragraph, let alone in the opening sentence. -- Let's not muddy the waters by highlighting Nietzsche's "Germanness", but treat the subject with restraint and balance and a respect for the predilections of the man himself. -- Pedant17 02:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Pedant17 has denied waging a campaign to rid the article of any reference to Nietzsche's being a German (reply to BCST2001, 06:24, 25 August 2007 [UTC]). The actions which led (I surmise) BCST2001 to characterize this as a campaign have continued unabated. This seems to be a long-standing project of Pedant17's, so I note the times he has made this attempt. September 21, 2006; December 22, 2006; January 16, 2007; March 12, 2007; April 7, 2007; May 9, 2007; June 11, 2007; July 6, 2007; July 30, 2007; August 21, 2007; September 20, 2007; October 30, 2007; and, most recently, November 26, 2007. The last two attempts referred to the talk page, but no justification was given here. I find it unseemly to single someone out this way, but this has gotten ridiculous. RJC Talk 01:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I have never "denied waging a campaign" -- I have simply pointed out that I try to improve the article from time to time. Part of such improvement involves de-highlighting the very questionable label of Nietzsche as a "German philosopher" in the lead-sentence/paragraph. -- I know of no move "to rid the article of any references to Nietzsche's" alleged Germanness. On the contrary, I have written here (and I quote) "Nor should we shy away from Nietzsche's background in the German-speaking cultural tradition. Rather: we should treat the matter with the detail and accuracy it merits -- and we face difficulties doing that within the brief compass of the opening sentence of the article." (Note of 25 August). -- It may "seem" like a long-standing project,-- I see it rather as a periodic series of edits within an overall context of improving the article for accuracy and style; and I invite anyone to consider this "German-ness" point in the context of my other edits within the article, made on the dates helpfully listed above. -- As noted above, my last two edits have referred to the talk page: they bore the Edit-summaries:
  1. (copyedit; align nationality with Talk-page-state-of-play pending discussion there.) (27 November 2007)
  2. (copyedits; align to Talk-page discussion on nationality) (31 October 2007)
In each of these two cases I referred to the state of the discussion on the Talk=page, where no arguments, let alone valid arguments, had appeared to counter my reasoned explanations for the non-necessity of confusingly highlighting Nietzsche's alleged nationality in the lead. I still await such arguments; or at least a discussion here as to why my points may appear unsatisfactory. It may appear "ridiculous", but nevertheless we need to discuss the matter.
Pending and feeding into such discussion, I note that Nietzsche "relinquished his Prussian citizenship" circa February 1869 (after appointment to Basel): see: Ruediger Safranski, Nietzsche: a philosophical biography. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002, ISBN 978-0393050080 page 358. [Translated by Shelley Frisch from Nietzsche: Biographie seines Denkens. Munich: Carl Hanser, 2000. ISBN 978-3446199385 ]
Also I note a lack of defined nationality in the opening words of versions of the Wikipedia articles on:
Several of them well-known "Germans"...
And some people with doubtful/confusing nationalities:
In the light of all this, I suggest we remove any misleading "German" tag from the opening paragraph and add a separate sub-section -- perhaps at the end of the "Biography" section, reading something like:
Nietzsche had [[Saxony | Saxon]] ancestry, [[Prussia]]n birth, a Polish self-image,<ref> See [[Radwan coat of arms]] for a discussion of Nietzsche's self-perception as a Pole. </ref>[[Switzerland | Swiss]] residence, declared statelessness and an international intellectual outlook/influence: he never held citizenship of the [[German Empire]].<br><br>Nietzsche "relinquished his Prussian citizenship" circa February 1869 (after appointment to Basel).<ref>Ruediger Safranski, ''Nietzsche: a philosophical biography''. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002, ISBN 978-0393050080 page 358. [Translated by Shelley Frisch from ''Nietzsche: Biographie seines Denkens''. Munich: Carl Hanser, 2000. ISBN 978-3446199385 ]</ref> and operated thereafter as a stateless person.
-- Pedant17 (talk) 06:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Just a note: Nietzsche was officially released (? sorry, don't know the correct English term) from Prussian citizenship on April 17, 1869. The document is still in the Nietzsche-Archiv and is reprinted in the Colli-Montinari edition of the letters and also in the articles by His and Hecker - see footnotes of the article. (Is Safranski unaware of all this?).--Chef aka Pangloss (talk) 20:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the detail. I presume Safranski, given his subject-matter, had a greater interest in the decision to abandon Prussianness (rather than the granting of the application), and he noted the process in passing while constructing a time-line and without giving a precise date. -- 01:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
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