Nietzsche - understandable?: Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Introduction to Philosophy / Factual Issues / Books » Nietzsche - understandable? » Nietzsche - understandable?

Nietzsche - understandable?

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Nietzsche - understandable?

yebiga
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jul 25, 2009
Location: Australia

Total Topics: 11
Total Posts: 127

Posted 09/21/09 - 01:54 AM:	#71
Each weekend at the Nietzsche old boys club, I like to queen it up a bit with a light frock. Of course my favorite dialectic is the overman, a little slave/master confrontation is equally satisfying. On nights like these metaphysical reality just melts away: a regular dionysus festival. We are left with bated breath and anticipation for the eternal recurrence. We have had some interesting inter-schools socials with foucaltians, and wittgensteinians, but we are reconsidering our relations with the Kantian boys. Sadly, very dull, moralizing and religious nutters. Entirely asexual, they neither drink or smoke. The entire evening we endured their preaching imperatives and mystical ways to find god. Fortunately, they left early due to a pre-arranged session of self flagellation.

Banno
Old goat

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Aug 15, 2004
Location: Oz

Total Topics: 111
Total Posts: 6293

Posted 09/21/09 - 02:06 AM:	#72

Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

Cadrache
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Dec 09, 2006
Location: AB, Canada

Total Topics: 104
Total Posts: 2644

Posted 09/21/09 - 09:35 AM:	#73
You merely make things shine. Paleontology would be better though. Edited by Cadrache on 09/21/09 - 09:51 AM
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

Dr Sticky Buns
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 21, 2009

Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 2

Posted 09/21/09 - 06:43 PM:	#74
Nietzsche's works were certainly page turners, however I found myself rereading a lot of him material.

Cadrache
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Dec 09, 2006
Location: AB, Canada

Total Topics: 104
Total Posts: 2644

Posted 09/22/09 - 01:47 PM:	#75
I like objet d'arts that are otherwise known literally as a room full of garbage. As a whole I don't find much in Neitzche. When I remove a piece here, or a piece there then I find something interesting. Like removing everything that doesn't have to do with molding in his work on tragedy.(or moulding?? Plastic arts....)
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

Umbrellajack
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Aug 03, 2009

Total Topics: 3
Total Posts: 18

Posted 09/22/09 - 07:36 PM:	#76
The problem with revolutionary thinkers is how easy it is to say 'duh' to their claims. Neitzche and William James and Husserl all lived at the same time. They were flooded with the leftovers of rationalism and idealism. All three removed themselves from a longstanding tradition in favor of a more relativistic worldview. Each had their own perspective and goals. Each influenced many more thinkers. Neitzche may be less clear than the others, but that's just because he's German. He really got the ball rolling in contemporary philosophy, so whether or not we 'understood' his intention, we have an 'understanding' of his thought.
"You can't be there. You can only bring your here with you." -Dr. Awesome Professor

yebiga
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jul 25, 2009
Location: Australia

Total Topics: 11
Total Posts: 127

Posted 09/22/09 - 08:28 PM:	#77
Michel Foucalt's work develops and expands on theories raised by Nietzsche. But where Fred took the entire canvas of western thought as his subject, Michel is more specific and targets his analysis at specifics: madness, sexuality, judiciary and punishment. Michel eloborate on the genealogical development of power, knowledge and morality with in these specific areas. In particular, Michel and Fred argue against our traditional war/treaty thesis of history. They show us how the grand narratives of historians have instilled in our contemporary culture a perverse metaphysical perspective of history: Greeks, Romans, Christendom, Reformation, Revolution, Industrialisation, etc. This is a philsophical history with consistent themes and narrative development leading to an inevitable - what? modern, liberal democratic, state - which just so happens to be just like the one the historian lives in! Talk about push polling and engineering an outcome. The individual is entirely missing in this narrative, the forces of power, repression, the life lead then and now becomes entirely subjugated to the grand theme, the empire, or today the multi-national market. This is a history and philosophy of cartoons, for the super hero and villain. But it is not only in our history, this is a contemporary narrative we all buy, literally. Michel and Fred, posit that in any human society war is omnipresent. The state, organisations, police forces all manner of institutions will battle for power and control between themselves and against the individual. I think they are both frustrated and annoyed that we the masses and the individual have become entirely unconscious of this war and thus become pliant drones. This is the slave morality Fred in particula rants against. They wish for a history and philosophy which enpowers the individual not enslaves. This is why Fred often sounds like some motivational speaker but his motives are not to help you acquire property they are to help you remove the shackles. Edited by Incision on 09/24/09 - 06:09 PM. Reason: capitalization, punctuation

JAC
An Honest Aesthetic

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jul 23, 2007
Location: America

Total Topics: 17
Total Posts: 289

Posted 09/22/09 - 11:23 PM:	#78
philosophytomorrow wrote: P.S. do you like Fight Club? It's a good movie, yes. The main character is a little too nihilistic at times, for me; but I find the commentary the movie makes very interesting. I just think you have to appreciate Nietzsche for the artist that he is. It's not about discovering truth, it's about creating it; it's about willing and struggling and living. The canvas is blank, waiting to be painted; the bow of human existence held tight, waiting to be released; the power is inside you, waiting to be expressed, etc. "Transcend! Transgress! Transform! Beyond good and evil; in violation of all law; into the true yes-sayer. Value is not discovered, not derived, not determined, not deduced - it is created! Let the doubters fall into nihilism, for we stand now at the precipice of the Aesthetic. The scars of experience are the planks by which we travel; and verily, our bridge shall reach the Overman!"
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

Erik
Professor

Usergroup: Moderators
Joined: Sep 20, 2002
Location: Sierra Madre, CA

Total Topics: 2
Total Posts: 623

Posted 09/23/09 - 09:49 AM:	#79
It would seem as though any creation of truth must be done out of a prior "throwness" (as Heidegger would say), so we're not dealing with a blank canvas but rather with a pre-existing set of norms and standards that dictates the way things show up for the people of a particular historical epoch. These standards can definitely be transformed, but never entirely overcome. Even a thinker as radical as Nietzsche must draw upon the tradition in order to create something "new". In many ways the philosopher Heraclitus anticipates his attacks upon metaphysical thinking even before that type of thinking (Platonism) came to dominate our Western heritage. He was a marginal figure whom Nietzsche appropriated and made central to his own philosphical enterprise. That's not to say there weren't many others who exerted an influence upon Nietzsche, but this is just one conspicuous example of his reliance upon the very tradition which he so vehemently (and rightfully) attacked. I'm not trying to nitpick here, but I think it's an essential point for Nietzsche enthusiasts to remember, one which "corrects" their perhaps excessive emphasis on the individual genius. The idea of the lonely, courageous "overman" projecting values and meaning into a void seems - to me at least - to overstate the case quite a bit. Again, this doesn't mean that we should blindly follow a particular undertsanding of things that has become rigid (common sense), but simply to recognize our own belonging and indebtedness to something beyond our own creative impulses. I'll have to go back over Nietzsche's works to see if his philosophy does contain the rudiments of such an idea. Off the top of my head I think it may. Specifically, the Appolonian/Dionysian juxtaposition would seem to have implications for the idea that, in a certain sense, we are part of something much larger than ourselves. I'm not suggesting that Nietzsche was a communitarian or religious thinker per se, but I don't think he was quite the extreme individualist that many people make him out to be. And if he was...well, then he may have been a bit shortsighted. Just a thought.
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. Oscar Wild

Cadrache
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Dec 09, 2006
Location: AB, Canada

Total Topics: 104
Total Posts: 2644

Posted 09/23/09 - 10:16 AM:	#80
"I know what it means to add things! I know the answer!" shouts lil' Johnny. "Grand!" Now. Tell. Me. The. Answer.", Liu decries! "I don't have a question...."Johnny states; as he looks up at Liu as if he were confusious. Mere Form is not an answer. Just look how much further we went intellectually when we stopped looking at alchemy and changed to science.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Sorry, you don't have permission to post. Log in, or register if you haven't yet.