The Philosophy of Life: Nietzsche and Bergson
Open Access
- Author:
- Herron, Alexander C
- Area of Honors:
- Philosophy
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Leonard Richard Lawlor, Thesis Supervisor
Brady Lee Bowman, Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Philosophy
Bergson
Nietzsche
Will to Power
Élan Vital - Abstract:
- By the end of the 19th-century, Nietzsche’s life works had collectively represented an existential philosophy that strictly categorizes all of life into a sort of power relations he called the will to power. In all his significant works, such as Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche spent much time investigating the genealogy of humanity, criticizing nihilism and anti-semitism, and of course, conceptualizing the Übermensch/Overman. Referring to the same timeline, Henri Bergson rose into highly honorably positions in France academia while crafting some of the most genius literary works that would forever change 20th-century science and philosophy. The Creative Mind, Creative Evolution, and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion stand as Bergson’s masterpieces, yet also exemplify a philosophy structured around three major concepts: Intuition, duration and the élan vital. The following essays not only review Nietzsche’s and Bergson’s complex philosophies but also investigated the similarities in both their moral philosophy as a means of better understanding the ultimate goal of justifying an argument which states that both the élan vital and the will to power is nearly one of the same.