Shelley Ann Hulbert

This dissertation might be described as a philosophical biography of an idea —Nietzsche’s idea of ‘amor fati’, ‘love of fate’. First introduced in 1882, amor fati marks a renewed affirmation of life for Nietzsche, a new understanding of what it means to say yes to life. In this thesis I show how loving fate informs both Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, and proposed replacement of traditional values with life-affirming values. For such an important idea, Nietzsche’s published references to amor fati are not frequent — four occurrences in his published works. In fact, the importance of the idea to Nietzsche is highlighted, not cast into doubt, by a close look at how and when he discusses it in his published works. After he introduces the notion in 1882 as a very important new year’s resolution urging himself to love fate, he returns to it in the final three occurrences at the end of his productive life. I argue that the ambition of loving fate acted as a type of lighthouse – his beacon drawing him back from the dangerous waters of philosophical exploration and the dark clouds of personal suffering. He calls amor fati his “greatest love” and as his “formula for human greatness in a human being”.