10/06/2025
Russell’s heavy criticism of Nietzsche: “I dislike Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die. But I think the ultimate argument against his philosophy, as against any unpleasant but internally self-consistent ethic, lies not in an appeal to facts, but in an appeal to the emotions. Nietzsche despises universal love; I feel it the motive power to all that I desire as regards the world. His followers have had their innings, but we may hope that it is coming rapidly to an end.“
— Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book Three, Part II. Ch. XXV: Nietzsche, p. 772
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Background: Russell's criticism of Nietzsche
Bertrand Russell, in his A History of Western Philosophy (1945) wrote a well known, scathing and what some Nietzschean scholars find “an infamous and deeply flawed“ chapter concerning Friedrich Nietzsche, calling his work the “mere power-phantasies of an invalid“ and referring to Nietzsche as a “megalomaniac“ and a “crude misogynist“. Russell claims Nietzsche did not value egalitarianism, denounced both the French and American revolutions and was against Socialism. Despite Nietzsche's hostility towards anti-semitism and nationalism, Russell also charges some of Nietzsche's later admirers as fascists and n***s who seized his philosophy to justify war. It should be emphasized that the chapter was written towards the end of World War Il, and fourteen years later in Wisdom of the West (1959), Russell revised or clarified his position, acknowledging that Nietzsche's philosophy was not inherently linked to fascism and Na**sm, but rather usurped.
Russell continues:
“It is not easy to sum up the content of Nietzsche's thinking. He is not, in the ordinary sense, a philosopher, and has not left a systematic account of his views. One might perhaps describe him as an aristocratic humanist in the literal sense. What he tried above all to promote was the supremacy of the man who was best, that is healthiest and strongest in character. This brings with it a certain emphasis on toughness in the face of misery, which is somewhat at variance with received ethical standards, though not necessarily with actual practice. By concentrating on these features out of context, many have seen in Nietzsche the prophet of the political tyrannies of our own times. It may well be that today's tyrants have drawn some inspiration from Nietzsche, but it would be inappropriate to make him responsible for the misdeeds of men who have understood him at best superficially. For Nietzsche would have been bitterly opposed to the recent political developments in his own country, had he lived long enough to witness them.”
— Bertrand Russell, Wisdom of the West: A Historical Survey of Western Philosophy (1959), Ch. XIII: Enlightenment and Romanticism, p. 258
Many dismiss Russell's thoughts today as a “misreading of Nietzsche“ (a frequent, and to many Russell supporters, a trying response to disagreement concerning Nietzsche) while others, especially scholars from Marxist schools, recognise with Russell deep and critical flaws in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s, primarily under the influence of German-American philosopher Walter Kaufman. Kaufmann, like Russell, also sympathized with Nietzsche's acerbic criticisms of Christianity. However, Kaufmann faulted much in Nietzsche, writing that “my disagreements with [Nietzsche] are legion.” Today Nietzsche’s ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th and early twenty- first century thinkers across professional philosophy and in popular and youth counter culture.
Image: Friedrich Nietzsche. Naumberg, 1882, 37 years old. Part of a series of 5 photographs. The last photos of Nietzsche before he became ill and the only ones made during his active period as a writer and philosopher.
