Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals; CCWV.LIFE

In 1887 Nietzsche publishes On the Genealogy of Morals, three essays tracing modern morality to resentment and the ascetic ideal. He argues that the will would rather will nothing than not will at all: nihilism is for him not an opinion but the inner logic of two thousand years of Western valuation, now arriving at its conclusion.

Tagged: Nihilism

The Event

Date: 1887 (exact)
Era: The Word and the Nineteenth Century; Standard periodization of the nihilist movement and idea
Location: Leipzig; today Leipzig, Germany
Traditions: Nihilism
Streams: Nihilism
Key figures: Friedrich Nietzsche
Key texts: On the Genealogy of Morals

Connections

Illustration for Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra

History Event Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra 1883 gives the diagnosis of Zarathustra its scholarly form

Primary Sources

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Zur Genealogie der Moral. Leipzig, 1887.

Secondary Sources

Crosby, Donald A. The Specter of the Absurd: Sources and Criticisms of Modern Nihilism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
Gillespie, Michael Allen. Nihilism Before Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Nishitani, Keiji. Religion and Nothingness. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Reginster, Bernard. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Provenance: HIST-1353; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.