Nietzsche and Heidegger converge in their view of the “self” as a non-essential, historically situated process that demands active engagement with a world lacking absolute foundations.
Nietzsche calls for creative self-overcoming, Heidegger for authentic disclosure of Being, but both reject a static self in favor of agency and responsibility.
Meanwhile, reading through Richard Rorty’s pragmatist lens, while insightful in highlighting contingency, flattens their philosophies by reducing the “self” to a linguistic artifact, a relativistic, interchangeable model, which ignores Nietzsche’s vitalism and Heidegger’s ontological depth.
This reduction obscures the bold reimagining of the self as a dynamic, world-shaping force and reduces it to a mere redescription of terms.