John Fredrick Parker
Donor
PoD no earlier than 1888, and his writing that year must be as OTL.
Title can refer to his life, his legacy, or both.
Title can refer to his life, his legacy, or both.
That'd have less impact then you might think. It could certainly improve Nietzsche's mainstream popularity, but within philosophy and academia, there's been a lot of discourse on Nietzsche, and a lot of it is praiseworthy. Nietzsche provided an antidote to nihilism, and his works often resonate with a lot of work in analytic and post-structuralist philosophy.Interesting... So what's Friedrich's post-breakdown life like in this scenario?
It's mostly via Wittgenstein that Nietzsche has received any sort of positive appraisal in analytic philosophy. He is certainly a divisive figure within analytic philosophy, but I'd owe that more to Anglo-American attitudes then analytic philosophy itself.What Analytic Philosophy have you been reading? His work exhibits much influence on Continental Philosophy, but only in a certain manner.
In my experience, Nietzsche, and in fact all other Existential philosophers, are only studied on a historical basis, in a "how did we get to where we are now" sort of way, not a "people actually think like this guy" manner. Nietzsche and Existentialists really only heavily influence non-philosophers in the former way.
Of course, my focus is Classical Philosophy, and my experience in Analytic Philosophy has been very limited, only to the really important and influential papers and ideas in the 20th century, so I could be wrong. And I have absolutely no experience in Continental Philosophy, and know nothing about it other than supposedly its more amiable to Existentialism.
It's mostly via Wittgenstein that Nietzsche has received any sort of positive appraisal in analytic philosophy. He is certainly a divisive figure within analytic philosophy, but I'd owe that more to Anglo-American attitudes then analytic philosophy itself.
I dislike the term "Continental philosophy" because it's so vague and broad as to be useless. Among that "school" he's had quite a bit of positive appraisal, mostly on the left, but there are some exceptions, notably Leo Strauss.
In the short story The Last Ride of German Freddie by Walter Jon Williams, featured in the anthology World's That Weren't, Nietzsche emigrates to the United States for his health during his traveling period, and ultimately takes part in an alt-Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, where he actes on his superman theories and dies a hero (after killing some important Western icons), while his writings are left with 'Josie,' the town trick.
I'm not sure if it would necessarily improve his fate, but by having Nietzsche's writings become a part of the American Wild West culture, it certainly changes it.