Anyone here read Nietzsche ?

[ThinkGreen]

I've read a little of his stuff during a philosophy class I took... really interesting. I enjoyed his stuff a lot. I own Thus spoke zarathustra, but have yet to read it. I should get around to that one of these days.

Idk where this quote is from, but I always liked it:

"The

 

[Devout Pessimist]

Philosophy was always something I said I'd never pay to be educated in. I probably get less out of it independently but I've got as long as I want to go through it in detail :icon_chee

I have learned that I could have gotten just as much learning philosophy on my own than I did from taking the classes. The last two years I quit going to the lectures because I realized there was more information on the internet than what my Prof could give me.

Given the cost of school it is generally a good idea to take something more practical in school like engineering or business instead of getting an English degree or a Philosophy degree. I personally think those subject are important to learn but for what you pay it makes a lot more sense to take something practical that will get you a job and then study literature and philosophy on your own time.

The old saying applies in this context: "Do what you must do in order to do what you want to do"

 

[shunyata]

Good $hit...

In Will to Power, he was kind of losing his mind toward the end.

I did like his short work, the Anti Christ.

Beyond GOod and Evil was good...

the Geneology of Morals was well done as well.

The Geneology of Morals and The Birth of Tragedy were some of my favorite philosphical works.

 

[Johnny_Mo]

Meh, can't say I'm into Nietzsche specifically, but I read a lot of Heidegger, Derrida, and Kierkegaard, so I'm in hanging with the same crowd.

his stuff on Christianity is interesting, but well deconstructed at this point. Moltmann, Benson, and Marion are helpful.

Also, Heidegger > Nietzsche

Heidegger is, how shall we say, difficult. To really work out and digest his ideas can take an inordinate amount of time and to logicians and most modern scientists his work often borders on nonsense. I think it's fair to say he had some "bigger" ideas and insights than Nietzsche (although Nietzsche's prose is so much more elegant) and so one might rightfully claim Heidegger > Nietzsche, but, alas, it seems many have been turned off to his work by his (foolish) flirtation with the Nazis.

The brilliant thing about Nietzsche is that, unlike so many of his contemporaries, he seemed to completely divorce his work and his politics from the rampant anti-semitism of his time and so his works have aged, for lack of a better word, better with modern audiences and thinkers than say, a Wagner or a Heidegger. Ok, enough of my rambling.

Suffice it to say, in terms of late 19th German culture and thought, for me Nietzsche and Mahler are among the upper tier. But that's just me and my preferences.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

The old saying applies in this context: "Do what you must do in order to do what you want to do"

This is my every day

 

[Johnny_Mo]

I might also add that for all the Nietzsche aficionados in here who are also big music heads, you should check out the composer Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, a symphonic tone poem (a genre of which he was a master) based on Nietzsche's seminal work of the same title. You'll instantly recognize the opening bars of the first movement from opening to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

 

[Spoken]

aficionados...

gotta use that word more

 

[Devout Pessimist]

Heidegger is, how shall we say, difficult. To really work out and digest his ideas can take an inordinate amount of time and to logicians and most modern scientists his work often borders on nonsense. I think it's fair to say he had some "bigger" ideas and insights than Nietzsche (although Nietzsche's prose is so much more elegant) and so one might rightfully claim Heidegger > Nietzsche, but, alas, it seems many have been turned off to his work by his (foolish) flirtation with the Nazis.

The brilliant thing about Nietzsche is that, unlike so many of his contemporaries, he seemed to completely divorce his work and his politics from the rampant anti-semitism of his time and so his works have aged, for lack of a better word, better with modern audiences and thinkers than say, a Wagner or a Heidegger. Ok, enough of my rambling.

Suffice it to say, in terms of late 19th German culture and thought, for me Nietzsche and Mahler are among the upper tier. But that's just me and my preferences.

I will be honest and admit that I have never heard of Mahler. I am going to look into him or are you referring to the composer ?

 

[Johnny_Mo]

Would you agree that there is no such thing as universal morality or do you think different ?

Well, Kant for one would disagree.

 

[Johnny_Mo]

I will be honest and admit that I have never heard of Mahler. I am going to look into him or are you referring to the composer ?

Yeah, the composer. Not terribly similar to Nietzsche in thought or worldview, but of the same spirit of a man going against the grain and following his own guidelines even if they conflict with popular trends in the intellectual thought/culture of the time.

 

[Vincent86]

I've read a lot of his stuff

 

[djacobox372]

Ya know who was a huge fan of Nietzsche:

 

[KOQ24]

Ya know who was a huge fan of Nietzsche:

and how is that Nietzsches fault?

Nietzsche had spoken out against Nationalists&anti-semites years before the Nazis even existed

 

[nerf]

and how is that Nietzsches fault?

Nietzsche had spoken out against Nationalists&anti-semites years before the Nazis even existed

he's not saying that nietzsche was a nazi, he's saying that you are, if you're a fan of his!

You black wearing, arm raising genocidal You!

 

[Johnny_Mo]

Ya know who was a huge fan of Nietzsche:

Reductio ad Hitlerum strikes again.

 

[Zankou]

Ya know who was a huge fan of Nietzsche:

Why, because of such Nazi-friendly Nietzsche quotes like:

"No, we do not love humanity; but on the other hand we are not nearly "German" enough, in the sense in which the word "German" is constantly being used nowadays, to advocate nationalism and race hatred and to be able to take pleasure in the national scabies of the heart and blood poisoning that now leads the nations of Europe to delimit and barricade themselves against each other as if it were a matter of quarantine. For that we are too open-minded, too malicious, too spoiled, also too well-informed, too "traveled": we far prefer to live on mountains, apart, "untimely," in past or future centuries, merely in order to keep ourselves from experiencing the silent rage to which we know we should be condemned as eyewitnesses of politics that are desolating the German spirit by making it vain and that is, moreover, petty politics:

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

Reductio ad Hitlerum strikes again.

Nice.


OP, here's a bit I came across the other day and liked, from "Twilight of the Idols":

How the ‘True World’ Finally Became a Fable

History of an Error
1. The true world is attainable for the wise man, the pious man, the virtuous man, – he lives in it, he is it.

(Oldest form of the Idea, relatively clever, simple, convincing. Re-writing of the sentence ‘I, Plato, am the truth’.)

2. The true world, unattainable for now, but promised to the wise man, the pious man, the virtuous man (‘for the sinner, who repents&#8217.

(Progress of the Idea: it becomes fi ner, more seductive, more incomprehensible, – it becomes a woman, it becomes Christian . . .)

3. The true world, unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable, but even as a thought it is a consolation, an obligation, an imperative.

(Basically the same old sun, but through mist and scepticism; the ideas become sublime, pale, Nordic, K

 

[Spoken]

Okay, Okay...
2 things here Zankou-
1) No one my circles hate on Nietzsche for providing Hitler with ammo. Why? Luther, that's why.
2) Heidegger, apparently, joined the party to save the school... however, he later took away Husserl's library privileges. Never mind on point #2

 

[Johnny_Mo]

and how is that Nietzsches fault?

Nietzsche had spoken out against Nationalists&anti-semites years before the Nazis even existed

Right, Nietzsche actually found the two very distasteful (in time where popular opinion certainly did not). And his concept of the

 

[Deleted member 159002]

What philosophical issues: in a few sentences -- what we can know about the world and how we can know it. How God fits into the picture (or doesn't). How rational and empirical ways of knowing can be reconciled. What we can really say about the world as it is and why past attempts at theology and metaphysics have fallen short. Did Kant "satisfy me"? Well, no, he was writing hundreds of years ago lol. But it's pretty amazing to read things like:

"Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds of exemption from the examination of the tribunal. But, if they are exempted, they become the subjects of just suspicion, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination.

"We do not enlarge but disfigure the sciences when we lose sight of their respective limits and allow them to run into each other."

I mean, science was barely even a thing at all back then and people are saying shit like this today still. And that's only from the introduction.

I can't get into ALL of Neitszche's or Foucault's interesting ideas here obviously. This is a Nietzsche thread though, so there's bound to be more discussion of the former. Here's one example though -- I read recently that Foucault "proved" that scientific theories were just products of history and sociology (in his Madness and Civilization), which I still think is bull-shit. All he did was show that the history of mental illness was sketchy as hell, that hardly dismantles all of science. His writing is pretty cloudy too. But he does bring up some questions about science being the arbiter of truth, and identifies some potential threats to that venture.

Watch Foucault's debate with Chomsky and you can really tell that they're speaking different languages.

I hope that's satisfying, I don't really want to hijack the thread any more. Suffice it to say that texts like these tend to encompass a great deal of the thinking of the age and that going through them is interesting and thought-provoking, especially when we consider what we think ourselves and why exactly we think that way in the first place.

Thanks for the reply.